• ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      50·
      1 year ago

      Anyone who openly identifies as “a leftist”, “extremely progressive” or “socialist leaning”, or any other variation of some mealy-mouthed description gets all of my skepticism and disdain, especially when these people always do it to insist upon themselves.

      When tell people that I’m a Marxist it’s because it’s relevant to the discussion (e.g. when discussing theory) or that I’m an ML when it’s a matter of stating my political biases or using shorthand to skip over describing that I adhere to dialectical materialism etc., or that I’m a communist if someone accuses me of being a liberal. That sort of thing.

      But when people hedge their statements or they feel the need to qualify what they’re about to say by asserting their political identity, I look on it with about the same enthusiasm as a statement that opens with “I’m not racist but…”

      At least have the guts to say “I’m an anarchist” or “I’m a communist” or plain old “I’m a liberal” ffs.

      It’s also worth noting that the pearl-clutching anti-“tankie” left often spends time in their echo chambers lamenting the fact that the evil MLs have sullied the good name of socialism amongst the unwashed masses (completely whitewashing the ongoing history of McCarthism and liberal indoctrination btw - and in fact I’d argue that this is an example of internalising this), and how they either must abandon those terms or they must redouble their efforts to exclude MLs from their precious definitions.

      I mean, to be honest the majority of MLs I’ve come across have a very lukewarm attitude towards identifying as a socialist at the best of times. The idea that MLs need to be forcibly excluded from the label of socialist is largely a non-issue because they already avoid the term in most situations and saying this stuff just serves as in-group reaffirmation and grandiose statements of intent from the Anti-Praxis Aktion gang.

      “MLs are the ones who are responsible for anti-communist sentiment in the US! We should all concede ground to liberal indoctrination and use a more palatable term which is more amenable to liberals to describe our political identities with!! Tankies bad!!! Updoots to the left.”

    • ZoomeristLeninist [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      88·
      1 year ago

      landlord-spotted of course theyre a landlord

      “im a pretty left leaning person but i also want to leech off peoples wages and drive up the price of housing”

      oh, how magnanimous of you, barely making a profit. YOU ARE GETTING SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY FOR YOUR HOUSE. it’s all profit since it all goes to equity in the houses, maintenance, or straight to their pocket. these scumbags will say anything to make themselves feel better when they know they are despicable

    • BountifulEggnog [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      76·
      1 year ago

      a bare minimum profit

      YOU GET TO KEEP THE HOUSE MOTHERFUCKER. How the hell is “a free house in 30 years” not a shit load of profit? Dingus doesn’t even do his own maintenance.

    • yoink [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      i tied the future of my kids to these houses, have you thought about that huh? every house you take from me you’re taking from the tiny toddler hands that i personally put them in, stop being so mean :(

      • CarbonScored [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        1 year ago

        (please ignore the future of those tenants’ kids and how they’ll be hundreds of thousands dollars poorer because I took it from them)

      • JohnBrownsBussy2 [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        53·
        1 year ago

        To give a serious answer, landlords have a material class interest in conducting the unearned expropriation of rents from workers/tenants (and to be honest, literally everyone who isn’t a landlord). Even from a classical liberal perspective (i.e. Adam Smith) landlords have done nothing to merit these rents, they’ve simply partaken in the principal expropriation (that is, the expropriation of what once was and ought to be the provenance of all people, the land and nature more broadly). Landlords do not merit the revenues of their property, since any revenues they obtain are generated from the value of the property itself: all the landlord does is own it (i.e., “passive income”), and that ownership was/is established by a system of violence. In the modern day, landlords rely on the state system of violence to protect their property and force others to fork over rents to use it, which is a change over the original landlord system, where the landlord and their armed flunkies would have to do it themselves. So, an individual landlord can preach liberal platitudes, but when it comes to the fundamental economic relationships, their existence as a class is predicated on the preservation of a fundamental/primordial injustice and the deprivation of their fellow human beings.

        In summary: mao-shining

      • combat_brandonism [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        30·
        1 year ago

        Engels was a dirty blue blood who owned a factory but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that ConfusedAZ’s idea of ‘left-leaning’ is more right wing than Boris Johnson.

      • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        30·
        1 year ago

        You can but it’s exceedingly unlikely because your own material interest is tied to these things:

        • Ever-increasing land values (largely financial speculation and the creation of housing-limiting regimes).

        • Private ownership of housing as a profit-generating asset (commodity) rather than a human right.

        • State violence in the form of the police, who function to protect private property interests.

        • The direct extraction of working people’s money simply because you have more than they do. You could afford the down payment, they could not. Now they pay for your mortgage and more simply because they are poorer.

        • Landlords are traditionally shitty people that think of others, particularly their renters, as trying to pull one over on them.

        • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          You can but it’s exceedingly unlikely because your own material interest is tied to these things:

          People are more complicated then that, you really think this is an accurate point of view?

          • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
            30·
            1 year ago

            You ever seen someone get evicted, or get evicted yourself?

            That’s a landlord showing you how much humanity corroded by those material intersests.

            It kills people.

            • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Two issues I have with what you’re saying, this is a generalization being used to judge an individual, and materialism isn’t incompatible with being left leaning. Do you not have possessions or income?

              • boboblaw [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                25·
                1 year ago

                Around these parts, when you see the word “materialism”, it’s being used in the philosophical sense, rather than the common usage.

                Materialism is a set of related theories which hold that all entities and processes are composed of – or are reducible to – matter, material forces or physical processes. All events and facts are explainable, actually or in principle, in terms of body, material objects or dynamic material changes or movements. In general, the metaphysical theory of materialism entails the denial of the reality of spiritual beings, consciousness and mental or psychic states or processes, as ontologically distinct from, or independent of, material changes or processes.

                Taken from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/materialism/v-1

              • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
                20·
                1 year ago

                There are other meanings for the word material, ha. Material interest means they get stuff that benefits them if they act a certain way. It is in your material interest to own a house so that you can have housing security. It is in a landlord’s interest that you rent from them instead, and for as much as you’ll pay.

                And there’s nothing wrong with judging individuals based on what they choose to do with their lives. There are activities and professions (not that landlording is a profession) that are inherently extractive and detrimental and that nobody is forced to do. For example, working as a mercenary.

                • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  There are other meanings for the word material, ha. Material interest means they get stuff that benefits them if they act a certain way. It is in your material interest to own a house so that you can have housing security. It is in a landlord’s interest that you rent from them instead, and for as much as you’ll pay.

                  Okay, don’t answer my question.

                  And there’s nothing wrong with judging individuals based on what they choose to do with their lives.

                  Factually it’s wrong. You’re judging them by the associations of what they choose to do with their lives, not the actuality.

                  Thank you for the insight.

        • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          I think it’s subjective, but this quote seems to align with my perspective:

          Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on “ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism” while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on “notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism”

            • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Okay, so I see what you’re saying, but from my perspective this would be like saying someone openly gay can’t be right leaning.

              • yoink [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                35·
                1 year ago

                that would have to also necessarily imply that being gay is a choice, similarly to landlording, and that you have no choice but to be a landlord regardless of your political beliefs

              • machinya [it/its, fae/faer]@hexbear.netEnglish
                27·
                1 year ago

                being gay doesn’t say anything about personal beliefs or political alignment. it’s just one personal feature that might or might not influence your political thinking. people in privileged possitions tend to lean right because they tend to benefit from the current system regardless if they are part of a generally opressed minority

          • CrispyFern [fae/faer, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
            22·
            1 year ago

            The left/right distinction is to determine if something is pro or anti capitalism. If you like capitalism or think it can be “reformed” then you are right wing. If you want to see capitalism destroyed, then you are left wing.

            The 2 main classes of people under capitalism are the proletariat (working class, 99%, people who make a living by performing labor and receiving a wage), and the capitalists (bourgeois, ownership class, 1%, people who make a living by owning shit). Landlords are firmly in the capitalist class, which means their entire livelihood is based around capitalism continuing to exist in it’s current form. It’s nearly impossible for a landlord to be left wing because it goes against their own self interest. I guess class traitors exist, but I doubt the person in question is one since they’re trying so hard to downplay being a landlord.

            TL;DR: porky-scared-flipped stalin-gun-1 mao-shining

            • CorruptBuddha@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              The left/right distinction is to determine if something is pro or anti capitalism. If you like capitalism or think it can be “reformed” then you are right wing. If you want to see capitalism destroyed, then you are left wing.

              I don’t agree.

              From what I see there’s a strong effort to redefine terms like left and right to shame people into adjusting their values.

  • NailBunny [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    77·
    1 year ago

    I really don’t fucking understand why some people post shit in a public space and act so taken aback when people don’t agree. Like, why the hell are you even posting this shit if you don’t want to open it up to discourse? Just talk to yourself in a mirror if you’re so terrified of someone thinking you’re a complete dullard.

  • HornyOnMain [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    43·
    1 year ago

    The funniest thing is confusedAZ is a .world user so they haven’t even experienced interacting with “tankies”, even the normal left liberals on Lemmy are too far left for them lol

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    35·
    1 year ago

    I was around on Reddit a long time ago. The last couple of years I had so many posts removed because a bot decided I had used a bad keyword, or my post wasn’t properly formatted, or something. It was very strange. At some point people just stopped having anything new or interesting to say, and actually posting anything became more and more restrictive.

    • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      27·
      1 year ago

      Yea got banned from politics for not being civil after I called somebody a fucking moron and from worldnews for disinformation for saying I thought it was bad that we were arming self avowed nazis even if theybwere fighting russians.

      Then couldn’t remember my log in to that account when they got rid of third party apps and now the new account I made gets banned within 72 hours for “ban evasion” when I acvidently post a comment on one of a dozen subreddits without checking which sub it is.

      There’s literally nothing new there, just people leaving the same comments in the same three stories everyday.

      Russia is a week from total collapse, trumps a week from going to jail, and Biden is the most progressive president ever.