So where do you draw the line? When does someone calling themselves a socialist but acting like a lib democrat reach the point where you have to admit their actions speak louder than their words? There are socialists who are zionists, transphobic, homophobic, and/or effectively pro imperialism by bandwagoning against the targets of imperialism along with the imperialists. At what point do we have to admit these people are not socialists and by identifying themselves as much they are actually leading people away from socialism? For some, socialism means we have higher taxes and welfare, they call themselves socialists but that isn’t what socialism is. So because they call themselves that, is it true?
anticapitalism is generous heuristic, it could be as loose as who you think should own the means of production. We can say people are bad socialists if they’re bigots or imperialists.
I don’t believe we can afford to be strict right now. Yeah, I want Zohran to have better policy on AES nations and I want him to spit in NYPD’s faces as much as the rest of you. But I am willing to bite my tongue because rent control is more important than perfection, better public transit is more important, Municipal grocers is more important, etc.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, especially when every other politician is Hitler-lite…
Does this not sound like actual democrat rhetoric? “Yes I want Biden to support universal healthcare as much as you do, but control of the NLRB is important, stopping fascism is important, room to organize is important. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, especially when every other politician is Hitler-lite”
Does Zohran have a history of being a segregation lover and voting for Conservative policy? Does he have decades of imperialism and pro-capitalist votes you can point at? These are not the same people.
Seriously, the guy has a record as a NY state rep? Are there any real red flags or are we just sad that he isn’t perfect on a set of issues that he isn’t going to have control over?
I’m not saying he isn’t the better choice for mayor, but that doesn’t make him a socialist or someone who truly wants to enact socialism, even if he thinks of himself that way
So? I want our lives to get better. I’m not as dogmatic as others on here when it comes to who is doing the improvement.
I know I’m not as left as this site and that’s fine. When “perfect” commies start winning seats and making real change I’ll switch but until then I will work with who I got.
Wanting lives to get better and so reaffirming capitalism by supporting Democrat libs has gained us nothing but sure, maybe Mamdani will be the first to make our lives better. Maybe somehow Mamdani becoming mayor leads to a total shift in our economic and political realities. Maybe Marx was fundamentally wrong about how change happens and the liberal idea of is the answer to truly making our lives get better. This is a leftist position.
Simultaneously yes and no. It is subjective, because the meanings of “socialism” have been varied and vague from the very beginning - even the Communist Manifesto has to deal with this. A political dictionary written back in 1924 had over 40 definitions of the word.
In a community like Hexbear, there’s a smaller range of what “socialism” can mean, but even then it can be a school of thought (ideas), a social movement (praxis), a mode of production, etc. It still needs context or qualification to have a specific meaning.
At what point do we have to admit these [bigoted] people are not socialists and by identifying themselves as much they are actually leading people away from socialism?
They can still be a socialist if they’re repulsive, counterproductive and ignorant. Socialism isn’t an organization. It’s not a political party. It’s not “the good guys”.
Purity games are dangerous to analysis. There is No True Socialist. Marx said some racist trash[1], but it would be ridiculous to say they weren’t a socialist despite that. It also would be ridiculous to pretend that their bigotry was alright and excusable. Again, socialism isn’t a pure, utopian group of only people we like. There are bad socialists in the world.
If you want to claim a bigot isn’t a socialist because you think it will be effective propaganda, then that’s something you can do and it might even be a useful productive thing to do, therefore it’s the right thing to do, but it’s just as much rhetoric as a person falsely claiming “Mamdami is a socialist” because they thought associating a popular populist progressive Democrat with socialism will make the identity of socialism more well-known and accepted in the mainstream. Consider Bernie Sanders clearly espousing reformist capitalism (and imperialism, and Zionism, and … ). They were falsely identified as socialist and it led many thousands of people people towards actual socialist ideas beyond Bernie, like an Overton window. For analytical purposes, I’m very sure Sanders is not a socialist whatsoever, whether they realize it or not. But for rhetorical purposes, in the context of a post-Red Scare USA that largely won’t even consider listening to actual socialist points, taking credit for popular reform clearly has an effect. (To be clear, I’m not endorsing calling Mamdami nor Sanders “socialist”. I’m just describing an opposite example of false association as a rhetorical technique, one I’ve seen other people endorse)
I think it’s a shade of liberal great man theory to think that a figure like sanders has had a positive effect on bringing people towards socialism without acknowledging the many more people who he has kept away from socialism by setting the idea of socialism as liberalism.
Anyone who has a Bernie phase but ultimately moved on to revolutionary theory would have gotten there anyway, Bernie or not. I’m more concerned with the many many more people who reached the point of accepting Bernie’s theories of change and found comfort in staying there in perpetuity because they are designed perfectly to do just that. Defanging revolutionary energy and herding it back towards democratic party, capitalism, and imperialism is not bringing people to socialism, it is bringing them away from it, and that is exactly what Mamdani is doing in turn
So where do you draw the line? When does someone calling themselves a socialist but acting like a lib democrat reach the point where you have to admit their actions speak louder than their words? There are socialists who are zionists, transphobic, homophobic, and/or effectively pro imperialism by bandwagoning against the targets of imperialism along with the imperialists. At what point do we have to admit these people are not socialists and by identifying themselves as much they are actually leading people away from socialism? For some, socialism means we have higher taxes and welfare, they call themselves socialists but that isn’t what socialism is. So because they call themselves that, is it true?
anticapitalism is generous heuristic, it could be as loose as who you think should own the means of production. We can say people are bad socialists if they’re bigots or imperialists.
I don’t believe we can afford to be strict right now. Yeah, I want Zohran to have better policy on AES nations and I want him to spit in NYPD’s faces as much as the rest of you. But I am willing to bite my tongue because rent control is more important than perfection, better public transit is more important, Municipal grocers is more important, etc.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, especially when every other politician is Hitler-lite…
Does this not sound like actual democrat rhetoric? “Yes I want Biden to support universal healthcare as much as you do, but control of the NLRB is important, stopping fascism is important, room to organize is important. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, especially when every other politician is Hitler-lite”
Does Zohran have a history of being a segregation lover and voting for Conservative policy? Does he have decades of imperialism and pro-capitalist votes you can point at? These are not the same people.
Seriously, the guy has a record as a NY state rep? Are there any real red flags or are we just sad that he isn’t perfect on a set of issues that he isn’t going to have control over?
I’m not saying he isn’t the better choice for mayor, but that doesn’t make him a socialist or someone who truly wants to enact socialism, even if he thinks of himself that way
So? I want our lives to get better. I’m not as dogmatic as others on here when it comes to who is doing the improvement.
I know I’m not as left as this site and that’s fine. When “perfect” commies start winning seats and making real change I’ll switch but until then I will work with who I got.
Wanting lives to get better and so reaffirming capitalism by supporting Democrat libs has gained us nothing but sure, maybe Mamdani will be the first to make our lives better. Maybe somehow Mamdani becoming mayor leads to a total shift in our economic and political realities. Maybe Marx was fundamentally wrong about how change happens and the liberal idea of
is the answer to truly making our lives get better. This is a leftist position.
Simultaneously yes and no. It is subjective, because the meanings of “socialism” have been varied and vague from the very beginning - even the Communist Manifesto has to deal with this. A political dictionary written back in 1924 had over 40 definitions of the word.
In a community like Hexbear, there’s a smaller range of what “socialism” can mean, but even then it can be a school of thought (ideas), a social movement (praxis), a mode of production, etc. It still needs context or qualification to have a specific meaning.
They can still be a socialist if they’re repulsive, counterproductive and ignorant. Socialism isn’t an organization. It’s not a political party. It’s not “the good guys”.
Purity games are dangerous to analysis. There is No True Socialist. Marx said some racist trash[1], but it would be ridiculous to say they weren’t a socialist despite that. It also would be ridiculous to pretend that their bigotry was alright and excusable. Again, socialism isn’t a pure, utopian group of only people we like. There are bad socialists in the world.
If you want to claim a bigot isn’t a socialist because you think it will be effective propaganda, then that’s something you can do and it might even be a useful productive thing to do, therefore it’s the right thing to do, but it’s just as much rhetoric as a person falsely claiming “Mamdami is a socialist” because they thought associating a popular populist progressive Democrat with socialism will make the identity of socialism more well-known and accepted in the mainstream. Consider Bernie Sanders clearly espousing reformist capitalism (and imperialism, and Zionism, and … ). They were falsely identified as socialist and it led many thousands of people people towards actual socialist ideas beyond Bernie, like an Overton window. For analytical purposes, I’m very sure Sanders is not a socialist whatsoever, whether they realize it or not. But for rhetorical purposes, in the context of a post-Red Scare USA that largely won’t even consider listening to actual socialist points, taking credit for popular reform clearly has an effect. (To be clear, I’m not endorsing calling Mamdami nor Sanders “socialist”. I’m just describing an opposite example of false association as a rhetorical technique, one I’ve seen other people endorse)
https://web.archive.org/web/0/http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.htm ↩︎
I think it’s a shade of liberal great man theory to think that a figure like sanders has had a positive effect on bringing people towards socialism without acknowledging the many more people who he has kept away from socialism by setting the idea of socialism as liberalism.
Anyone who has a Bernie phase but ultimately moved on to revolutionary theory would have gotten there anyway, Bernie or not. I’m more concerned with the many many more people who reached the point of accepting Bernie’s theories of change and found comfort in staying there in perpetuity because they are designed perfectly to do just that. Defanging revolutionary energy and herding it back towards democratic party, capitalism, and imperialism is not bringing people to socialism, it is bringing them away from it, and that is exactly what Mamdani is doing in turn