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Police discover 80 Russian torture chambers in Ukraine
(www.ukrinform.net)
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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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What's this lefties nonsense the only people saying this are tankies because communism is good in their mind despite the fact that there's demonstrably provably wrong.
The political left are not saying this.
Conservatives are playing word games to try to confuse non-conservatives. When conservatives cannot defend an absurd postition, they often resort to re-defining words or gaslighting.
As always, every thought uttered by a conservative is either deception or manipulation. Every time. Never, ever trust a conservative. They are not capable of honesty.
The battle of the pot and the kettle
Communism in itself is a great ideology, it’s just that applying it correctly requires an unreal amount of effort and cooperation between millions of people.
And since that’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to do in a realistic setting, the only countries that identify as communist are actually fascist ones who try to fool people into believing they aren’t.
It's not an "ideology" either. It's a mode of production, which includes feudalism, slave society, and capitalism. The argument has been about how we move from a capitalist society to a class-less/state-less society.
I haven't seen a single country identify as Communist, not in the past and not in the present. They have identified as socialist, welfare capitalist, building socialism, or state-capitalist.
Uhh… what about China, ruled for the past 70+ years by the “Communist Party of China”…?
They're trying to redefine left like some idiotic psyops lol.
I agree with that sentiment and consider myself a leftist, also. It certainly applies more to ML/tankie types. I also believe that's what the poster in the image means too. There's still broadly some confusion and conflation of terms regarding the exact definition of solicaism/communism/leftism/ML-ism, and I believe the this is an example of that.
Tankies are not actually on the left, though. That's part of their gaslighting. Tankies are conservatives.
I view that as wishful thinking. They're leftists authoritarians. I know it's uncomfortable to think we may share a side of the political specrtum with such people, but to deny it is to ignore the problem in the same way right-wingers did with the fascists (right-wing authoritarians) who now dominate their ranks in at least the U.S and Italty. However, unlike the far right, they're usually socially progressive; at least western leftists are. Perhaps the similarities ML types have with fascists can be best explained by horseshoe theory.
However, I'm open to the idea that our common political parlance is insufficient in this matter. I'd much prefer a political spectrum defined by rationalism/humanism/critical theory vs the alternative embodied by lunatics of every stripe and philosophy, political, religious, or otherwise. Perhaps that's what you meant by disassociating from them.
Your definition of "left" is incorrect. Authoritarianism is never part of left-wing ideology. Once authoritatianism is introduced into whatever leftist construct is being discussed, the construct becomes right-wing. Full stop. When someone describes a "leftist" ideology that includes authoritarianism, you should consider that a red flag that a conservative is attempting to manipulate terminology.
Authoritarianism is definitional in determining political orientation. It's not a requirement, but when it exists as part of an ideology, that ideology becomes right-wing by definition.
When you share memes or opinions that classify any authoritatian ideas as part of a leftist ideology, you are either gaslighting or have yourself been a victim of gaslighting (and are now sharing misinformation). This is harmful to the left. If you are actually a leftist, as you claim, please stop.
Here is a Wikipedia entry further describing the characteristics of left-wing politics to help clarify how authoritarianism is definitionally counter to left-wing orientation.
I understand where you're coming from and agree in principle; however, I stated that the issue is with common parlance, which very much does include authoritarians among leftists. The Wikipedia article you linked even says so under the subsection: Types, where it includes Maoism. Perhaps I should stop referring to such as leftists so as not to normalize that perception, but it is already so and would make having a conversation with people far more difficult if I were speaking from a reference point that most people don't share.
Who is trying to establish communism here? Even socialism as a whole was already abandonded by both Russia and Ukraine in the 1960s, maybe even earlier. If two sides are verifiably fighting for capitalist interests, with a single country caught between choosing to pawn themselves off to one major capitalist power or another, and both sides have been confirmed to commit war crimes far beyond what could be passed off as incidental,
why do we have to support a side?
Hold on, communism is good in my mind, its just what they call communism fucking sucks and what I call communism is a pipe dream.
Facts, fam. It's ok to enjoy pipe dreams as long as we're mindful of the fact that they are pipe dreams. Everybody gets inspiration from unrealistic aspirations. It's fine. Like, unironically, it's ok to think "boy, it would be nice if the world were a little more like how I wish it were", as long as there isn't an effort made to abuse other people for not always agreeing or having the same dream.
Truth be told, it'd be cool if communism were to actually work, although I for one feel leery of the human error introduced by central planning. Parallel processing is humanity's greatest strength and leaving things up to a committee is a massive vulnerability. If instead of an insular committee of unilaterally appointed bureaucrats, it were some kind of democratic system where direct referendums could override the representatives whenever people get pissed off enough at their representatives not doing their (FUCKING) jobs, that'd be a damn sight better than any currently operating economic model. Because frankly, right now, capitalism itself also has insular committees of appointees (shareholders in boardrooms) and that sucks too.
I wouldn't want centrally planned, and I definitely don't want insular commitees of bureaucrats. Just asking for trouble. But I think what I'm asking for now would be called Market Socialism instead of Communism. If we sieze the means of production, why give up that power to someone who doesn't make the goods? And central planning sounds like it will always have the Local Knowledge problem, though today we do have tariffs at port authorities which sound to me equally insane.
Gosh yeah :3
Hella fair!
Might that be closer to something like syndicalism?
Because, like, the people doing the work all belong to an association that represents their industry and decide collectively among their industry peers what is produced, how it's produced, and for whom.
Those industrial associations would be worker syndicates.
As far as communicating the wants of the population at large, that's what currency exists for; it's a signalling system. That's the "market" component - if a worker syndicate decides to produce things that they send to markets where nobody wants those things, nobody there buys the things and as a result they get less money for paying their own bills (including wages). Nobody likes not getting paid, after all.
Thank you. I oughta read some theory, after all :3
That sounds so wonderful
I didn't say any of that. I pointed out that this particular blog source isn't providing any tangible evidence and should be treated with skepticism.
I deliberately don't follow much Ukrainian war news, I find the coverage from a western perspective distasteful so I went and googled around a bit.
https://apnews.com/article/un-human-rights-torture-civilians-russia-ukraine-29e238cf0ec6a2e6a25bfd260bf5e93b
This is a better evidenced and written article. Like I said I'm not a Russia fan and approaching western reporting with skepticism is generally a better approach in my opinion.
I think varying degrees of torture probably occur with all wars, by all sides. War is distasteful and terrible. (International) crimes are surely committed.
I agree that the article in question is weak. I know there's already evidence that Russia has committed war crimes. Probably Ukraine, too. War sucks.
That's generally my take, I'm not interested in breathless horse race reporting from CNN. I find it very suspicious that in my googling about torture in Ukraine, I found only one article mentioning atrocities from the Ukrainian side. I probably believe the Russians are being more brutal especially given the limited reporting I've seen about penal battalions. But given all the Nazi patches I've seen on Ukrainians, I doubt the war has been clean. From my understanding having never lived in a war zone, wars are never clean.
I don't like this war reporting portraying Russians in a dehumanizing way. I think that's dangerous narrative building. I don't trust western reporting to not toe NATO's line. So when I say I'm skeptical of articles, I try to take what information presented without the narrative attached. In this example I found not much actual information presented but a strong narrative of an invasive oppressive army brutalizing the civilian population showing no empathy and a penchant for war crimes. That might be true but the evidence presented for such a strong narrative is a picture of an ill maintained room and a police report.
We're caught in the middle of a third world war, with many similarities to the first one: namely, inter-imperialist/inter-capitalist. Saying something bad about "your team" (the one you're supposed to praise as supreme and glorious with a clear display of patriotism) is seen as traitor behavior worthy of prison. The US and UK would dehumanize Germans back during WWI, and send labor activists to jail over claims of German interference. You're right to avoid the trap of dehumanizing "the other" for the sake of trying to pick the lesser of two evils. Never pick sides in an inter-imperialist conflict. At best you get an FDR to avert revolution, at worst you get a bunch of Mussolinis walking around.
That's fair, and Iappreciate your response. However, at this point most reasonable people understand how vicious Russian occupiers are. Most people still making arguments about the veracity of their crimes are not arguing in good faith.
To be completely fair, the meme applies to me completely lol. I have to examine and reflect on my bias as well.