You can choose not to answer and I respect that, I’ve seen you guys post around here a lot. While I have in the past tried to avoid those conversations, I’ve simply never given any of you a chance to speak your mind. Do I believe there are people on lemmy that just want to troll? Absolutely! There’s people like that everywhere, I’m simply trying to understand your perspective because I’ve never engaged in the subject, now I’m intrigued. I’ve gotten to a point where I just have to know what drives you and why. Answer if you want or ignore me, I won’t harass you about it. I’m just trying to give you a chance to speak and explain so I can better understand. There’s no trickery here, I promise.
Ah, silly me. I’ll choose to believe you’re interacting genuinely. I will, of course, come to regret this.
My answer is rooted in several reasons:
The inability of liberalism to put in effect the progress that liberals talk about (based in COVID deaths, hate crimes, and continuing rampant inequality).
The hysterical fear that liberal democracies use in blocking information on Communism (if “Mao is as bad as Hitler” why do public libraries always stock books by Hitler and never by Mao?)
The ease of explaining the present deplorable state of the world with the banal evil of the profit motive.
The blatant lies put forward by capitalism - not only are Mao and Stalin not monsters, they both write with a clear and academic voice. You can easily find works written by both, and they do not match the stories told in the U$.
And the emotional pull of the millions who pulled themselves from slavery and oppression through Communism:
Ballads of Lenin
Comrade Lenin of Russia,
High in a marble tomb,
Move over, Comrade Lenin,
And give me room.
I am Ivan, the peasant,
Boots all muddy with soil.
I fought with you, Comrade Lenin.
Now I have finished my toil.
Comrade Lenin of Russia,
Alive in a marble tomb,
Move over, Comrade Lenin,
And make me room.
I am Chico, the Negro,
Cutting cane in the sun.
I lived for you, Comrade Lenin.
Now my work is done.
Comrade Lenin of Russia,
Honored in a marble tomb,
Move over, Comrade Lenin,
And leave me room.
I am Chang from the foundries
On strike in the streets of Shanghai.
For the sake of the Revolution
I fight, I starve, I die.
Comrade Lenin of Russia
Speaks from the marble tomb:
On guard with the workers forever —
The world is our room!
And this is me being genuine here, because I’m clearly out of the loop, but what is it about communism that you think is really great? Just forget about the capitalist propaganda comments, I want your genuine opinion, why is it great and what drew you to it?
The anti-communism in your comment history is clear. I can see that you are J.A.Q.ing off with no interest in engaging honestly.
Is there a reason that you’re intent on derailing this thread for a question you’re clearly not interested in the answer to?
Why do you think millions of the most oppressed turn to communism?
Why do you think the most rich bourgeois and the most vile Nazis revile communism?
Have you looked to your right and left, and seen who swells your ranks?
I have. I’m content with the side I’ve chosen. Are you?
This is going to take me a lot longer to reply to, unfortunately! Just timing in my day, and the need to sit down at a computer to reply. Catch you in a bit! :)
edit: actually, /u/[email protected] has a better response than I would put together, I’ll just second theirs.
“People who built the Volkswagen, people who genocided millions of Ukrainians, what’s the difference?”.
This isn’t comparable to my Auschwitz comparison, because this picks two unrelated things. The USSR also didn’t genocide millions of Ukrainians.
Though the OP didn’t even mention communists at all, he mentioned tankies, as in the people who actively deny the atrocities of stalinism and maoism. It’s weird that you’d jump to defending communism.
I don’t see a difference between Marxist-leninism, “Stalinism” (not a real thing, though sometimes people use the term), and communism. I’m happy to go into the nuts and bolts, if you’d find that interesting. I’ll try to use Marxism-leninism going forward, if that’s easier.
But in an online discussion about the evils of both, it sort of doesn’t really matter. They both have a track record of authoritarianism and mass genocides, and I don’t get along well with people which defend either.
If these are the reasons you oppose both fascism and Marxism-leninism, do you oppose Liberalism the same amount?
Could it have something to do with their post announcing intent to federate trying to both-sides the Russian invasion of Ukraine? www.hexbear.net/post/280770 (not even getting into the comments there).
I don’t see how that’s relevant to the hexbear defederation. Lemmygrad takes a stronger stance on the SMO in general, we’re still federated.
Personally I’d be cool with defederation from lemmygrad too, for the same reason.