I know a great deal about what I'm talking about, but if you feel that I'm wrong about something in particular, I'd be happy to discuss it. I am not American.
bearboiblake
joined 1 year ago
Of course you can, but when people identify themselves or others as "liberal", they're not referring to individual liberty, they're usually referring to "liberalism", which does contain some elements of individual liberties, but far more importance is given to free market economics and free flow of capital, than it is to individual freedoms. That's why corporations can invest anywhere and borders don't pose much issue for them, whereas it is very hard and expensive for individuals to move to another country.
Reddit is hostile towards left-leaning people, and it is also a cesspool of liberal propaganda. Liberals fucking hate leftists, even more than they hate fascists, because liberalism is fundamentally pro-capitalism. That's why the mainstream media is currently crashing out about people like Hasan Piker, who actually represent a growing base of support for socialism, and they run every possible smear they can.
Liberalism is fundamentally a right wing ideology, it's primarily concerned about the freedom of markets, rather than the freedoms of people, and when it comes down to choosing between the rights of individuals and the interests of corporations, liberals will side with business interests, nearly every single time. Usually, they'll always couch it in more progressive terms, like talking about jobs and economic growth. That's why both mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans agree on most issues, because they're both pro-business, pro-capitalist institutions.
Just stop repeating their propaganda talking points. There is one very clear aggressor here, one obvious bad guy, so just hold onto your "both sides" rhetoric until after the war is concluded, it does less than nothing to help Iranian people right now, all it does is sanewash Israel and the US.
Fuck nationalism. Who cares what nation we're from, we are all human, and innocent humans are suffering, Canada is causing MORE SUFFERING through sanctions. Stop supporting this bullshit.
Sanctions are never used righteously, that was just propaganda to get you to swallow them. They have ALWAYS been used to benefit the ruling class and the foreign policy goals of the American Empire.
Fundamentally, the reason is capitalism. Money is power, so under democracy, the state is for sale. Labour ministers met fossil fuel lobbyists 500 times in first year of power, analysis shows.
How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?
Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.
I get what you're saying, they may compete to some degree, but fundamentally, the goals of the ruling class are aligned: suppressing socialism and leftist movements helps all of them, because those movements and ideologies pose a serious threat to their wealth and power.
To stand a chance against them, the working class have to put aside our differences as much as we can and start actively fighting against them, rather than allowing them to divide and conquer us. That's the important thing.
While you might be right that Trump himself may or may not understand the reasons for US foreign policy goals, his handlers definitely do. Trump is not a power unto himself, he is operating within the permissible bounds of the ruling class. I know sometimes it does not feel that way, but look no further than Project 2025 if you doubt it.
There is a reason he keeps flip-flopping on the Iran war, because he is getting boss calls from the people who actually run the country, since it is fucking up the bag, the markets, oil prices, etc.
There is no man in the clouds judging your goon session.
No, I'm just talking about liberalism. You probably have some high-minded enlightenment-era ideals floating around in your head about what liberalism is, but I'm telling you, your ideas about how liberalism is about freedom, that's the actual psyop to divide the proletariat you spoke of. Liberalism is functionally one big propaganda operation to replace monarchies with oligarchies.