this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 77 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Never forget, the fruit of the tree of capitalism is fascism.

Capitalism unrestrained and left to do its thing, as it has, always leads to fascism. Fascism is the takeover of the state by the capitalists.

This is why fascism is blooming all over the western world. The global capitalist economy is simply in full bloom sitting on entirely captured nation states and fruiting.

The fruit being concentration camps, war, poverty, and scapegoating. Anything to blame literally anyone and everything else for all the inhuman malice the capitalists are doing to attempt to satiate their unquenchable greed.

If anyone still cares about maybe not ending the world for humanity, the capital markets must be destroyed, and speculative investment by passive robber barons not actively participating in laboring to produce products and services must be outlawed. But don't worry, we'll fade into the oblivion of greed made climate change out of cowardice. We'll probably be grateful to die to that after the Fascists have had their fun.

[–] Wrrzag@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Fascism is the takeover of the state by the capitalists.

What. Capitalism is already the takeover of the state by capitalists. The state apparatus is just the means by which the dominant class exerts its power.

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[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 53 points 2 months ago (2 children)

From a lemmygrad post on fascism


The western left’s use of the term fascism, is borderline white-supremacist at this point. Fascism was a form of colonialism that died by the 1940s, and is only allowed to be demonized in public discourse, because it was a form of colonialism directed also against white europeans. It was defeated, and Germany / Italy / Japan reverted to the more stable form of government for colonialism (practiced by the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Australia, etc): bourgeois parliamentarism.

British, european, and now US colonizers were doing the exact same thing, and killing far more people for hundreds of years in the global south, yet you don’t hear ppl scared of their countries potentially "adopting parliamentary democracy”. They haven't changed, and their wealth is still propped up by surplus value theft from the super-exploitation of hundreds of millions of low-paid global south proletarians.

This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.

Make no mistake about it: parliamentary / bourgeois democracy is not only a more stable form of government, it's also far more effective at carrying out colonialism, and killing millions of innocent people.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is why you have new leftists terrified that the UK or US or europe “might turn fascist!!”, betraying that the atrocities propagated by those empires against the global south was and is completely acceptable.

While the criticism is on point, I think you're underselling the legitimate dire fear modern leftists have when they see the brutality of the periphery returning home. We have to recognize that - individually - we're incredibly weak in the face of a mobilized police state. And we have every reason to be horrified of The Jakarta Method being visited on LA or Atlanta or Houston, particularly if we're members of that domestic political underclass so often targeted for abuse.

Any opposition must be a unified and organized resistance. But we are also plagued by mass surveillance, structural alienation, and a profound sense of vulnerability cultivated over decades of "War On" maximalist state propaganda. So we're feeling weak, we don't know who we can trust, and we see this horrifying inevitability cresting over our heads like a tsunami.

This isn't a betrayal of comrades abroad but a reflection of our own dismal moral, disunity, and despair. It represents one more hurdle for a modern western left to overcome and should be received as such, rather than used as a bludgeon to degrade left-wing moral even further.

Far better to be awake and aware and justifiably afraid of the threat of fascism than blind to it as the unaligned, compromised by it as the liberals, or enthusiastically participatory as the conservatives.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I think you’re underselling the legitimate dire fear modern leftists have when they see the brutality of the periphery returning home.

Liberal democracies have historically been as brutal to their domestic populations as any historical fascist formulation. You can look at how the US treated (and still treats) it's internal colonies / minorities. Nazi Germany explicitly wanted to carry out in eastern europe, what the US successfully carried out against native peoples, and failed.

Even outside of internal colonies, if you look at how the US or Britain treated its workers or its poor of their own races(they arguably entirely defeated its domestic working class movement, rebased their countries on finance capital, and exported class struggle to the global south), it doesn't look any different than how the historical fascist countries also defeated their working class movements.

To me, the basis of this is western chauvinism, and belief that "liberal democracy" isn't far worse. By pointing a finger at fascism, they get to keep their belief in the supremacy of their mode of government, that continues to wreak havoc on not just the globe, but internally also. It's a subtle form of western-supremacist scapegoating (pointing a finger at a settler-colonialism that dared to attack western countries also)

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[–] Saleh@feddit.org 45 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 27 points 2 months ago

Hot take: forcing children to pledge allegiance should be more concerning than the exact posture they are ordered to make while doing so.

[–] nieminen@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Didn't they quickly stop this after it became the Nazis favorite thing?

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They only changed it in 1942, which is 9 years after Hitler rose to power and 3 years before his reign ended.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It

When the United States entered WWII, the future head of the CIA, Allen Dulles, bemoaned that his country was fighting the wrong enemy. The Nazis, as he explained, were pro-capitalist Aryan Christians, whereas the true enemy was godless communism and its resolute anti-capitalism. After all, the U.S. had, only some 20 years prior, been part of a massive military intervention in the U.S.S.R., when fourteen capitalist countries sought—in the words of Winston Churchill—to “strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib.” Dulles understood, like many of his colleagues in the U.S. government, that what would later become known as the Cold War was actually the old war, as Michael Parenti has convincingly argued: the one they had been fighting against communism since its inception.

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The White House’s new exertion of control over the media finally gets us a perfect 14/14 score according to Britt’s Characteristics of Fascism. Granted, it’s not pass/fail. Things can still get far worse.

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Huh......so we passed on all 14......which is a fail.......at least from my perspective. Maga perspective may differ.

[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

Yes, perfectly modeling fascism is a failure. I didn’t want to suggest that we hit bottom just because we checked some boxes. There’s still plenty of room for things to get worse if we don’t do anything to stop it.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So the thing is classical liberals were (and are) capable of a lot of damage without Fascism. Fascism is a specific ideology. Not the suffering people are capable of creating. It's important to understand that your normal democracy is perfectly capable of creating mass suffering.

[–] jdeath@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

i got a lot of downvotes last time i said it, but the definition of fascism is just "stuff i don’t like" right?

/s

[–] unfnknblvbl@beehaw.org 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes I know my enemies. They're the teachers that taught me to fight me. Compromise. Conformity. Assimilation. Submission. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Brutality. The Elite... all of which are American dreams...

[–] SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All of which are American dreams...

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[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You left off Hitler being impressed by Henry Ford.

[–] stardust@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Being very impressed by US segregation laws too.

[–] Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

And US scientific racism too

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

The nazi's eugenics programs were copy-pasted from California's even, they were explicit about that.

[–] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I feel like it's unamerican in regards to the values our country espouses, even though it completely and utterly fails to uphold them.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 months ago (7 children)

"American values" are just a smokescreen, they aren't failed, more they serve their purpose of obfuscation well.

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[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago

The purpose of a system is what it does

[–] AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.com 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

"Espouses but fails to uphold" sounds more like negligence to me. Negligence would be allowing fascism through inaction (like democrat administration). But the US does far worse than that (funding genocide and propping up fascism elsewhere)

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[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All men are created equal

IS SLAVE STATE

Always has been

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[–] TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think the point you're making is true, but the titular argument could still be useful rhetoric to the misguided patriot.

[–] Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 18 points 2 months ago

No, this is Patrick

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Feels like imperializem merits to be further down the line, if not the last panel.

But yes, good memetics in this meme, gg.

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