I used to be an enlightened ‘the truth is in the middle’ centrist until I realized that the real world requires having actual ideals
Eventually you’ll reach the point I did which is that ideals are great but are rarely ever realized, thus, compromise is essential.
Or you’ll reach a point at which you develop real principles, such as “don’t compromise with fascists like the KKK”
Principled failure means dogshit. If half the country don’t even know their side supports the KKK, having a fucking conversation is a lot more valuable than preaching to your base. A reminder Trump fucking won on racism and your principles meant nothing to the people who voted for him. The “No compromise, no discussion.” left on Lemmy is fucking wild. You’re barely a step removed from Anarchy and Civil War and it’s a telling how fucking sheltered you all are for even suggesting it.
One of the reason the left in The Netherlands is in such a shambolic state is because they keep promising things only to compromise with the right, disappointing their voters. What many leftist people need in the west is an actual principal left wing part who does not want to compromise on important left wing topics. One of the reasons our marxist party in Belgium is growing the way it is, is because we don’t compromise on a lot of things. Otherwise you are going to end up like the Dutch Socialist Party and adapt racist immigration policies that have nothing to do with being a leftist. The goal is to educate the masses, not to throw ideals out the window in the hope of getting votes, because that way, only the right will win as they keep moving the goalposts.
My brother, when half the country opposes your viewpoints and the other half side with it compromise is all you have. Yes you can win in certain states on certain policies but you’ll never get the sweeping changes you want. This administration had to fight tooth and nail for fucking student loan forgiveness and it still only ended up being a half-measure. A full-measure never would have passed which is the problem. We all want full measures but so long as the GOP exist we will never get full measures. Compromise is how we get anything done at all. Short of a civil war and a lot of dead Americans, we are at a stalemate and the best solution I personally can come up with is trying to break the the fear and anger the right uses to control their voters. But that happens with talks and compromise, not ideals and radical propositions. Steps, not leaps.
There is the idea of the Conservative Ratchet. I do recommend looking it up. I believe it is even discussed in the 2nd thought video that this image is from. I’m not intelligent enough to describe it in text when there are people far better then me who have already done a far better job explaining it. But I do recommend it as a source of study.
too many conversations, not enough action
Nobody gets from capitalism to socialism overnight without a lot of people dying.
More people die from starvation, homelessness, and avoidable diseases. These problems could be treated in an instant with a socialist system. The benefits outweigh any cost.
Bro, you’re on a Marxist-Leninist instance.
None of us believe the revolution will happen overnight. We believe in building the revolution through raising class-conscienceness. We understand that what needs to happen takes time, and we understand that sometimes it’s a Sisyphusian struggle. It’s not “no compromise, no discussion” as you stated, we understand the need for discussion. Talk to any principled communist, you’ll get an honest discussion. But you also have to understand that there’s absolutely no room for compromise if that compromise means counter-revolutionaries can prevent actual change from happening. If you’ve heard the adage “give an inch, take a mile”, that applies in the instance of building a brighter future.
If we let racists have a say, they’ll prevent measures to repair racial relations. If we let sexists have a say, they’ll prevent measures for gender equality. If we let supporters of the current socio-economic system have a say, they’ll prevent the transition to a better system. This isn’t just conjecture, these are things that we’ve learned from previous revolutions, and from our efforts towards creating new revolutions. Marxism-Leninism is a scientific ideology, we observe the world, explain it, then learn from it. We have learned that we can’t compromise, or detractors will take everything away from the revolution that they can.
Further, we understand that the revolution will, very likely, come in the form of social upheaval and civil war. No successful revolution has come into being without bloodshed. We know we can’t just vote socialism into being. When the revolution eventually comes, it will be solidified by the deaths of many of our fellow countryfolk. This isn’t something we take pride in, this isn’t something we wish for. But it’s something we deeply understand.
You have tried to make a point, without understanding that this is something that we’re already fully aware of. History says it, our theory says it, our forums say it. You’re reminding us of something we’ve all read and discussed many times.
What
I had a former co-worker pull this “compromise” card when I was talking about how maybe minimum wages should be a living wage. He said “both sides should just come to a middle ground”. Like bruh, you know that “compromise” would be literally not a living wage, right? You get that, right?
The right has dragged the discussion so far right that we’re arguing for the LEAST BASIC necessities and have to compromise away from them.
We’re not arguing, like we should, should new mothers get 1 year maternity leave or 1.5 years?
No… We’re arguing should they get ANY leave, or nothing???
It’s like this for a million issues, that affect 99% of us, but unfortunately 50% of our population is so stupid and lacks empathy that they are arguing against their own interest.
Billionaires should be fighting 99% of us, instead they have 50 % of the morons fighting the other 50 %.
There’s already a middle ground, it’s the federal minimum wage (I assume US) that hasn’t moved for 20+ years
like the right doesn’t want there to be a minimum wage. They have a whole body of theory for why the minimum wage should be abolished. They want there to be 0 minimum wage.
There is a ridiculous amount of examples of abortion centrists who ultimately argue that abortion should be a legal compromise while saying that they don’t support either side. They’re just chronically unable to take any stand.
Legit all the fucking conservative women I knew got all upset when RvW was overturned and I was like “how the fuck do you not understand you voted for this very fucking thing?”
Close, a centrist is converservative but ashamed
It’s funny how most conservatives I’ve met turn to centrists if you start pressing them on their actual values
Compromise is overrated in the political arena.
Honey where are we going to eat tonight? Compromise away!
Should women have bodily autonomy? There is no compromise to be had here.
Politics is inherently a battle of ideas, it is supposed to be conflict where better ideas win, and compromise almost never works.
In most cases it just waters down a good idea, it rarely improves a shitty one.
Compromise has historically been used by the right to removed progress, from slavery, to women’s rights to vote, to civil rights, we’ve always had to compromise and then eventually we’ve gotten rid of the compromise and done the correct thing, we should have done in the first place.
Consensus >>> Compromise
With the necessary means of education of course.
Uncritical support to comrade Cyber Ghost, for making posts that draw out the liberals so we can ban them.
Make sure to Photoshop enemies out of pictures as well, Stalin.
I don’t think you properly arranged your sentence, because it doesn’t make sense. I can get where you’re aiming for, but that was from inference and knowledge of the material, not the sentence itself. At least be able to have your insults make sense, liberal.
Great job, centrists! You really showed those extremes who’s unbiased and completely not racist!
You know what’s fucked? We talk here sometimes about how many people that say they don’t like socialism are just very confused. Well, centrists made baby’s first step to understanding diamat. They just refuse to graduate and get that synthesis doesn’t look like people holding everyone’s livelihoods hostage and their victims coming to an agreement.
They want the status quo to go unchallenged as a “centrist” position. That’s just conservatism with more cowardice.
Hey, this video converted me from a “centrist” to a leftist.
aight love that you aint a centrist but
⛏
what does the pickaxe thing mean
Ice pick, the murder weapon used to kill trotsky (stupid ultra he deserved it lmao)
oh, ok. why did he deserve it, am i missing something? super new to leftism so forgive me if i am but I thought Trotsky was instrumental in defeating the white army?
It’s ok, we all gotta start somewhere!
Basically he was being a jackass and wanted to instantly achieve full communism even though the USSR had like no industry at the time. He escaped to Mexico later and was assassinated. Also iirc he didn’t have that big of a role in the revolution, but I could be wrong.
He had quite a large role in the revolution
As long as Lenin had him on the arm reach. Trotsky was pretty capable so he was one of the several guys being send to put out the crisises through the country, but despite usually doing good work he often screwed something and thus there are moments in the Lenin works and correspondence from that time, when he is like “Trotsky did WHAT” after reading reports.
ok, yeah that’s a little short sighted of him. he was a general during the russian civil war and his use of an armored train during said war led to some decisive victories over the whites. but i kinda get why he is seen negatively, i dont think he deserved to be killed over that though.
Even Marxist Leninists (who side on the stalin side of the stalin-trotsky controversy) praise the actions of trotsky during the civil war.
Otherwise he wasn’t all that. His politics were very suspect, especially his hatred and dismissal of the peasant class (that is my most major disagreement with him).
His critique of “socialism in one country” also becomes nonsense when you take into context the state of the USSR at the time. It was in no shape or form ready for a war with any nearby power (shown in the massive losses in the polish soviet war and the winter war, and those were mostly due to disorganization and unstable doctrines), its industry was in a shameful state, its population mostly illiterate, mostly cut off from the rest of the world, and there were saboteurs breaking everything left and right. Permanent revolution was not truly possible in any way. Socialism in one country also wasn’t a dismissal of internationalism like trotsky makes it seem. The Stalin era USSR took massive efforts to aid the spanish civil war and fund anti fascist resistance all over europe. Any further action would weaken the USSR to a point where it likely could not have fought off the Nazi invasion.
There is also the fact that Nazis peddled Trotsky’s ideology for the purpose of destablization during the Great Patriotic War. Of course that is not attributing trotskyism to any kind of fascism, that would be petty, but pointing out that it was mostly harmful to the Soviet Union.
Trotsky was also previously an anti-boleshevik from the menshevik camp, and, if I remember correctly, never changed the majority of his opinions from that time.
He was also no “inheritor of the soviet union”, to think that one such as Lenin would try to divinely bestow leaders upon the socialist democracy he created is against his every ideal. That and the legitimacy of “Lenin’s will” is called into great question, due to the suspicious circumstances from which it arose.
These are a few critiques off the top of my head, I need to read further on the subject to say anything else.
You’re either with us or against us. - Dubya
There is no “center” position on human rights. Unless you want to give people half rights?
Explain your username
That’s a british word for cigarette, i swear
I think it’s from a movie or something. I can’t exactly remember.
There are about a dozen Google results for it, none of them are me.
Regarding the comic itself (obviously not the comment next to it), was this originally done seriously? Did the artist actually make that comment unironically (unless the whole pic was done by one person)?
Nope, here is the original.
Glad I am not the only one who called out the shit bag humans on that post. Fuck those people.
In politics there is no centrism, centrists are right wings that make themselves appear modern.
Removed by mod
extreme left positions such as “maybe we don’t want to kill black people, even a little bit”
deleted by creator
Being a centrist doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on everything or you are a conservative in disguise. In fact, I consider myself a centrist and I have very strong lines I won’t cross.
In my case it means that you are not torn into extremes, and that you prefer a way that respects most people rights without sacrificing basic rights or certain ethic values.
And the image there is quite low effort. It’s trying to convey a message that either you are pro civil rights, or you want to kill black people. I don’t think there’s even a middle ground there, or a fair comparison.
There isn’t a middle ground in a lot of discussions. It’s just that the correct and just course of action is intentionally hidden behind fear and prejudice. Have you ever wondered why nobody ever talks about policies as class interests (discuss who would benefit and why these policies are pushed) in mainstream media, as if it’s taboo?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4D1wI6wGjU
So if you call yourself a centralist, then sorry to say, but you are either intentionally or unintentionally ignorant.
deleted by creator
So I’ll add the video to my list of TODOs. But I must admit that this discussion seems to be very USA centric. Here in Spain at least, lots of politicians and media do talk about which classes are affected by each policy and why. The same used to happen when I lived in Argentina.
Of course there are a lot of places where there is no middle ground. But there are a lot of places where there is. Do we abolish private property? I don’t think there’s a middle ground there. Do we privatize the education system completely? Lots of middle ground.
It’s as naive (and dangerous I might add) to think that there is no middle ground anywhere as to think there is a middle ground everywhere. Because again, both postures are extremes, and extremes are never good nor right.
Because again, both postures are extremes, and extremes are never good nor right.
That’s an extreme position in itself.
but ma’am I must let the nazis take over because combating them would be extremism, which is just as bad
I am very enlightened
Remember, if nazism is just an opinion to you and destroying it seems extreme to you because ‘freedom of speech’, you’re probably not threatened by it
It would be an extreme position in most of the United States history to completely honor the treaties with the American Indian tribes and not ethnically clense the population, but in my humble optinion that extreme position would have been a better outcome.
It was an extreme position for John Brown to do what he saw was right for the society he was in, but he was certainly right to liberate the slaves.
Can there be positions where compromise is necessary? Sure when material limitations show up.
Compromising with entities that can’t justify their existence like the bourgeoisie are decisions where one of the more “extreme” options is the right one.
Every position has two sides. Not all of them are equal but what you’re disregarding is perspective and the lives people live to get those perspectives. To you, climate change might be the most important issue in your life. You fight for it, campaign for it, it’s unthinkable how anyone could support fossil fuels. But the rural coal miner stranded in a small town with no jobs, no outside money coming in, they rely on coal jobs and if they lose them, they starve.
Understanding how people get to the wrong conclusion from your perspective opens you up to being more persuasive in your ideals. Yes, we should still get rid of coal but in the back of your mind you need to remember all the people who will suffer as a result and account for it. If a coal miner won’t literally starve with their family at the loss of their job, they might be more open to leaving it.
Class warfare is a whole other thing.
And so you choose to perpetuate the capitalist system and keep the coal miner and their descendants trapped in the company town? Sooner or later, the mine will be depleted, the coal miner will be left destitute, the environment is destroyed, and the mine owner is swimming in capital.
Human history is defined by class struggle, and class struggle is the overarching contradiction. It’s not some other thing. It’s the main thing.
Oof! Somebody took Karl’s kool-aid.
So, first off, it’s not the capitalist system that is at fault for the miners not having a back-up plan after the coal mine dries or coal is not marketable anymore. It’s due to corrupt politicians and lack of foresight from the constituents, that’s at fault there. But that’s to be expected. Most people are unable to plan their life with more than 5 years ahead, imagine a whole town working for commodities company where they don’t have enough education to understand the complexities of the market. It’s simply nearly impossible. The only place that I know that did something like this is Norway, where they have a trust fund coming from all the oil money, so when their oil dries up, they can still live out of that money for a while.
And as you can see from my previous paragraph, that’s not something that communism or socialism can change. That’s human nature. Cuba is not a shit hole because the US embargo, it is because Castro wanted its own SimCity. The same goes for Russia during the Soviet era, or China even now. Corruption is endemic of the politicians. And that’s a fact. No system survives corruption.
Finally, addressing the whole “history is a class struggle”. That’s to say a lot. You could say that human history has inherent class struggle, and that’s fine. But in reality, history is not defined by class struggle, more than could be defined by change of ethos, power dynamics or even whimsical change of heart. It’s too simplistic to say that everything has been a class struggle, because it simplifies human emotions and desires to materialistic possessions.
Oof! Somebody took Karl’s kool-aid.
Have you, like, looked around at what kind of place you are responding to lmao
Actually, I didn’t! Thanks a ton. I was going through All. This actually explains a lot.
Projection
Oof! Somebody took Karl’s kool-aid.
Karl Marx is literally the most cited economist on the fucking planet. If you don’t know marx, you don’t know economics, much less politics.
Lol
lol life expectancy is higher and LGBT rights legislation is better in Cuba than the USA, maybe do some basic research on the propaganda put out by the leaders of the shithole country you’re in 🙃
But the rural coal miner stranded in a small town with no jobs, no outside money coming in, they rely on coal jobs and if they lose them, they starve.
you act like we somehow don’t factor them in. Best options are reparations and stable government income until they find a job, or directly train them for working in renewables.
I guarantee that washing solar panels is more healthy than working in a coal mine
Who is shipping them solar panels? Haven’t seen the left push many bills to send renewable energy to rural towns. They sure as shit can’t afford to buy them so again what is the plan here? Ideals are so lovely in everyone’s mind but they’re just lip service. You can write out a plan, getting it done is the hard part. The people you’re unwilling to compromise with are standing in your way, yet everyone here bawks at the idea of getting shit done at half-steps and would rather get blocked at every leap. Radical change cannot exist with the presence of the right which makes compromise essential until that changes.
Everyone on the left knows coal plants are bad, coal mining is bad, yet the only bills being pushed are to ban and remove them NOT supplement the jobs and workers they alienate which is why it’s taking so long to remove them entirely. The right won’t let go of the objectively wrong way to do things so long as there are
peoplevoters they can capitalize on whose lives depend on doing the wrong thing.Sis, China has some of the largest mines that contribute to solar panel production in the world! Taiwan even trades with them in order to get the materials for such things. They make it themselves! Also how would a global collective addressing everyone’s needs not help anyone?
lip service? Since when is their environmental program lip service, they have the largest de-desertification campaign in the world! They are the largest user of renewable energy in the world! One of the forefronts of Nuclear energy and the discovery of Fusion! Aren’t socialist countries notorious for writing out big economic plans and completing them? You don’t go from poor agrarian backwater to spacefaring superpower in 20 years while having fought off the largest and most devastating war in history on lip service.
Also what is this “compromise with the right” bullshit? That never goes well, ever. They will never allow you to enact meaningful change, and are actively trying to undermine you in order to kill you anyway. You really think we want to work within their bourgeoisie democracy, one that favors the will of the right above all else? I assure you, we aren’t voting our way to socialism. To truly move forward you need only eliminate the right and install a socialist state through Revolution. The right isn’t necessary since at all, as they are only a force of regression.
We do not write the bills, there are no socialists in the offices of the US government. What delusions do you have that somehow a communist exists in the US government?
The reason the US is taking too long to replace coal is because they aren’t trying to replace coal. Every arm of the government actively deters and undermines all efforts at renewable energy. An actual socialist 5 year plan would implement these changes quickly and as effectively as possible. China’s efforts even include retraining coal workers to operate in the renewable energy sector.
How can every single sentence you have be totally and completely wrong?
I for one would liketo congradulate you on your strong princpiple of being the political equivalent of a weeble. Can’t let conditions or reality move us from the comfort of the centre, eh?
lemmy.world
this is the biggest indicator for having shit opinions, in league with that of the globe emoji and ukraine flag
