I dont understand the liberals love for failures. Like Harris, and Clinton both failed miserably and yet it's never framed as their fault. They're treated by liberals like people deserving of respect. It's just strange. Has anyone ever asked her why she thinks her opinion on what should be done going forward is valid when she has never won a national election?

[–] thethirdgracchi@hexbear.net 73 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Marx wrote about this exact phenomenon over a century and a half ago. Insane how nothing changes.

They do not need to weigh their own resources too critically. They have merely to give the signal and the people, with all its inexhaustible resources, will fall upon the oppressors. Now if in the performance their interests prove to be uninteresting and their potency impotence, then either the fault lies with pernicious sophists, who split the indivisible people into different hostile camps, or the army was too brutalized and blinded to comprehend that the pure aims of democracy are the best thing for it, or the whole thing has been wrecked by a detail in its execution, or else an unforeseen accident has this time spoiled the game. In any case, the democrat comes out of the most disgraceful defeat just as immaculate as he was innocent when he went into it, with the newly won conviction that he is bound to win, not that he himself and his party have to give up the old standpoint, but, on the contrary, that conditions have to ripen to suit him.

From https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch03.htm

[–] sodium_nitride@hexbear.net 48 points 2 days ago

One thing has changed. The "democrat" marx speaks of is even willing to launch a revolt against oppressors. The best that the "democrat" of today seeks is to integrate queer symbolism into the oppressor class ideology.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago

Holy shit it's perfect

[–] cisco@hexbear.net 58 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Liberals will call one party states undemocratic and authoritarian, but get upset when you don’t vote for Democrats because they’re “the only ones capable of defeating fascism” and everyone else is a distraction or op. Of course they also have no intention, rhetorically or politically, to punish or outlaw Republicans and other right wing components of society.

I’m not saying outlawing the right wing makes them go away, but the liberals have actively advocated for Republicans to be in power and have told other Republicans to “wake up” and take back the party from Trump.

Essentially the voters are exhausted, but the party sees this and can’t risk being required to actually work or rock the boat, so it whips the voters back into line.

It has been said that the Republicans are bad cops and the Democrats are good cops. In addition to that, I would also add on that the Democrats are HR for the company of Capital. Whether or not they truly despise their conservative coworkers for being despicable human beings who make the work environment hostile and unsafe, they exist to protect the company, not the employees.

[–] RedWizard@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I've always viewed the dynamic between Democrats and Republicans as the carrot and the stick. Democrats make their promises to mobilize the masses into voting for them. When people realize they can never actually reach the promieses dangled in front of them and get unruly, the Republicans come into power and whip the country into submission. They cause enough chaos and move the needle backwards just enough to ensure that Democrats never need to make real progress; they just need to fix the things the Republicans broke (and not in a way that they can't be broken again).

[–] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago

It has been said that the Republicans are bad cops and the Democrats are good cops.

I prefer it as the Democrats being bad cops, and the Republicans being gibbering eldritch horrors made of graft and howling for blood cops.

The Democrats threaten, the Republicans rampage while stealing everything that's not nailed down.

"Good cops" in that game would be something like socdems, offering a healthcare burger if you fall in line and cooperate with the prison of capitalist society.

[–] elpaso@hexbear.net 19 points 2 days ago

Comparing Dems to HR is perfect.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The western left has a big fetish for failure too, tbf. I think it's a Christian ethic of suffering as a sign of moral purity that permeates so much of western culture. And it produces this aversion to actually grappling with the vicissitudes and complexities of governance.

Rather than be forced to make compromises in the face of material reality, or god forbid, actually make a mistake, it's easier to valorize nobile failures, wax utopian about how you would fix everything if you were in power, and balk at anyone actually trying to wield it.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 2 days ago

I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. Like i see so many people debate for example the USSR. When they do it they almost exclusively talk about morals, and was this or that wrong or right. Which to me is so self defeating. You need to have the pragmatist strategy of Machiavelli, or Sun Tzu, and the Compassionate detachment of Buddha at the same time. You can't just hope good things happen and expect them to, and you can't just be purely strategic and not care about outcomes. It has to be a synthesis. Yet the ability to realize that synthesis seems very lacking in western discourse.

Like what is better a commune that perfectly fits your morals but lasts 6 months because it gets slaughtered by some brownshirts immediately, or a nation that fits 80% of your moral desires, and lasts a century because it ruthlessly defends itself from the forces of reactionary capital? One of those things can give an entire generation a fulfilling life, and one of them is a vacation that ends in disaster.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture by Jones Manoel

[–] hello_hello@hexbear.net 8 points 2 days ago

Another example of this is the contrast in how the People’s Republic of Korea is treated compared to Palestine. Both nations engaged in the same struggle — the anti-colonial fight for national independence. In the case of Korea, the struggle was made from a socialist perspective. Korea succeeded, despite being a country that is fractured by imperialism. It has an economy that is relatively strong, with a reasonably high level of industrialization, a very strong national army and capacity to launch nuclear weapons. So, Korea is not a defenseless nation. Palestinians are a people who are deeply oppressed, in a situation of extreme poverty, that don’t have a national economy because they don’t have a national state. They don’t have an army or military or economic power. Therefore, Palestine is the total incarnation of the metaphor of David vs. Goliath, except that this David doesn’t have a chance of beating Goliath in political and military conflict. Therefore, almost everyone in the international left likes Palestine. People become ecstatic looking at those images — which I don’t think are very fantastic — of a child or teenager using a sling to launch a rock at a tank. Look, this is a clear example of heroism but it is also a symbol of barbarism. This is a people who do not have the capacity to defend themselves facing an imperialist colonial power that is armed to the teeth. They do not have an equal capacity of resistance, but this is romanticized. Western leftists like this situation of oppression, suffering and martyrdom.

I'm so glad to see my thoughts wrt perspectives on the DPRK and Palestine being represented in the page. You can't support one and not the other.

[–] TheSpectreOfGay@hexbear.net 28 points 2 days ago

kinda feels like misogyny and infantalization of women to me

like they are accepting just absolutely nothing because they're women? cos women can't ACTUALLY be good politicians, i guess?

[–] balsoft@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Has anyone ever asked her why she thinks her opinion on what should be done going forward is valid when she has never won a national election?

TBF, that's true of most people, including all US socialists and communists.

Like, her opinions are not worth listening to because they are the usual neolib bullshit, not because she didn't win the election. If we go by that metric, we should listen to Trump, Nixon and Reagan.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 2 days ago

I don't think your understanding me. I'm not talking about her opinions on policy. I'm talking about strategy. You can be trying to implement fascism, or socialism and use the exact same strategy for either. It's like war. There is a difference between what you are fighting for and the methods by which you achieve victory.

I of course don't think a liberals policies are ever worth listening to, but the strategies of your enemies can still be effective. Yet Harris has failed to implement a single successful strategy during any of her presidential runs. So to look to her for advice on how to effectively combat an enemy is just moronic.