This post is the one I was referring to when I used the word mandate, a post made by someone I believe was an admin at the time, but maybe not. But I also talked to someone at the time from there who was a frequent commenter in places like the lemmy c/worldnews comm and they were very angry about having their posts and comments removed, while others were banned. I checked the modlog and sure enough. I’m really not trying to stir shit, it’s just something I’m sincerely curious about because it seemed so… off brand to me, to use a lib phrase.

Honest question, I thought hexbear had a mandate against “lionizing Luigi Mangione,” but I have been seeing more hexbear users like u/QuietCupcake even in this thread posting emojis that I thought would have gotten them removed or worse last December. Is that why OP is posting it here with an .ml account even though (forgive and correct me if I’m wrong comrade) you’re mostly a hexbear user? Did the mods there ever acknowledge the absurdity of that rule and roll it back, was it just quietly forgotten, or is it still selectively enforced? Don’t get me wrong, I think hexbear is mostly a great instance that I often comment in solidarity with, but I was surprised to see what seemed like an extremely uncharacteristic liberal position they took on that.

Putin’s political opponents frequently fall out of windows or catch some polonium poisoning.

Hmm… I wonder what happened to the original leadership of BLM? And hey, what are Fred Hampton and Mark Clark up to these days? Has Gary Webb published any articles recently?

These things are not the same, and pretending they are, makes you blind to how much worse they can still get. Russia is absolutely more of a brutal dictatorship than even the US, but especially than most European countries.

Oh believe me, I am well aware how bad they can get, you’re just completely unaware of how bad they’ve already been. You believe all these lies about how terrible Russia is, looking at it only through the lens that western propagandists have carefully cultivated for you without realizing that every accusation they’ve levied on their enemies is a confession about what they themselves have been doing all along. You’re as intellectually domesticated by US imperialist interests as any diehard Kremlin-supporting Russian citizen, only you have the benefit of being on the side that enjoys global hegemony without even understanding what that word means. You’re all up in arms about the lies of the media of an enemy state without having even an ounce of self awareness about the lies of the media you’re consuming, the very same media from which you think you’ve learned how uniquely bad the enemy’s media is.

SocDem is not right-wing by even the farthest stretch of the imagination

“Social Democracy objectively represents the moderate wing of Fascism.” - J. V. Stalin

https://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/bourgeois-democracy-and-fascism/

Even after the victory of fascism, the influence, ideology and traditions of Social Democracy continue their baleful and disorganising role, preventing the emergence of a united working class front to confront and defeat fascism. Further, if fascist dictatorship’s grip on power weakens, then Social Democracy stands in wait to come to the rescue of capitalism.

What is beyond doubt is that both Social Democracy and fascism are agents of monopoly capitalism; both fight tooth and nail against the struggle of the working class for its social emancipation. With this as their aim, both disrupt and weaken working-class organisations.

Their methods are, however, different. While fascism smashes the class organisations of the working class from without and opposes their whole basis and counters them with an alternative ‘national’ ideology, Social Democracy undermines them from within by diverting them along reformist bourgeois channels. Whereas fascism relies mainly on coercion, along with deception, Social Democracy relies mainly on deception, along with coercion. Their aims are identical; only their methods differ. In view of the identity of their aims and differing methods, one cannot but agree with Stalin’s observation, made as early as 1924, that “Social Democracy objectively represents the moderate wing of Fascism.” (Concerning the International Situation, Collected Works, vol 6, p.294)

Russia is no more a “brutal dictatorship” than the US is, or the UK, or any number of other capitalist shithole countries that call themselves “democracies.” Russian state media is no worse than, for example, the BBC or CNN. But more importantly, it does not have the global reach that the BBC and CNN have. The key thing that you’re utterly failing to understand here is that Russia does not have the global hegemony that the US has (and NATO in general, though NATO is just a collection of vassal states subservient to US capital). Russian state media cannot begin to compete on the global stage with the overwhelming stranglehold that western media has over not only their own domestic populations but the rest of the world. We here in the west are not saturated day in and day out by Russian propaganda, but we absolutely are by western capital (which is synonymous with US state) propaganda. Pretending like this is an even playing field is absurd and it’s why no one here is taking your whining about eBiL RuZzIaN media seriously. It’s not about “defending” Russian media, it’s about recognizing geopolitical reality.

The “Every Accusation a Confession” rule of thumb strikes again.

Thank you for staying on top of this kind of shit and exposing them when necessary.

Appreciate the informative list of links! (Very common u/davel W).

Also lol at my comment being reported to mods as propaganda for stating a simple, verifiable fact. Always funny how the dronies think it’s “propaganda” just for going against what they want to believe even when their beloved western sources reported on it back before it became no-no to do so. (A NATO No-No, if you will). I’d ask what instance the [redacted] reporter was from, but I guess that might give away exactly who it was.

The Eastern provinces that the neonazi-led Ukrainian government was ethnically cleansing, and who had been asking for Russia’s help (and to join Russia) since long before February of of 2022? Yes. Yes, they should be Russia.

The “tankie” instances are the least likely to have bots. They’re the most vehemently anti-AI and the moderators most active in banning any kind of bot-like activity. Hexbear, the one that all the dronies clutch their pearls about most and accuse of brigading the most doesn’t even have downvotes - they are incapable of mass downvoting.

Diseases did not conquer hundreds of tribes.

Disease played a major role in the European’s ability to conquer those tribes. It’s not an either/or situation. It is true that the “Americas” that the English started colonizing had already been devastated by the contagions brought by the Spanish. The English undoubtedly would have found it far more difficult and maybe even impossible to conquer those hundreds of tribes had they not first been so severely depopulated by pandemic. Acknowledging this does not absolve or even lessen the atrocities committed by the English.

Voters should vote for those who represent their interests. If any candidate is endorsing (let alone committing) genocide, and that is a violation of a given voter’s interests (and it damn well better be), then that voter should not vote for that candidate, period. If there are only 2 options and both are genocidal, then neither should be rewarded with a vote. You want “harm reduction”? Then vote for PSL - if your liberal obsession with voting has convinced you that voting has any power whatsoever, then don’t use it to reward genocide, use that power to say no to it entirely. If your position is that “we live under a system where we are getting genocide no matter what” then rather than going “well, there’s a chance this one might be one iota less genocide” maybe start coming to the correct conclusion that the system is indeed irredeemably rotten and rigged FOR genocide, that it is designed to be this way which makes all of that system your enemy, not just the orange team that says the quiet part out loud too much, but also the one that smiles politely and gives the right lip service while literally, not figuratively, but very much actually mass murdering children. Yep, that blue team is your enemy too. So now it’s time to get down to the hard work of building alternative power structures through organization in direct defiance of the genocidal machine, having done away with your petty red(orange)/blue team false dichotomy. Join us in actually working for a better world rather than tossing up your hands and voting for the genocidaires that cry crocodile tears and pretend it’s such a sad state of affairs as they massacre little kids for power and profit. You aren’t actually beholden to support them. They aren’t the “lesser” evil, they’re just another piece of the entire evil machine!

You seem to lack the reasoning capacity of most toddlers. The US war machine is committing genocide. Both the democrats and the republicans fully and unreservedly support and represent that US war machine. The genocide was started under one genocidal maniac (Biden) and continues under another (Trump). You weren’t getting “genocide-lite” when Biden, the one who ensured the genocide began and commenced without impedance, was in office and you aren’t getting “genocide-plus” now that the other genocidal maniac is in power. You are being played for a fool by a good-cop/bad-cop routine that is so plainly obvious it makes me literally wince to see fools be taken in by it. But of course they are, because it’s easier to pretend you made some difference by voting rather than actually doing anything to help the people literally being genocided right now. (Those of us who would never vote for fascists as the commit genocide are the ones sending aid directly to Palestinians while you whine about your team of blue fascists not being the ones in the big boy chair while the genocide commences and wagging your finger pathetically at the people who actually fight for justice. You aren’t fucking helping “lessen” the genocide by voting for the people who started it and ensured it continued on into the next term. People like you disgust me.

It’s a shame you’re unable to see which flags are swastikas while you go on supporting them.

I love unraveling the bullshit the powerful use to trick us into thinking it’s in our best interest.

You would likely very much appreciate Marx then, as it is his work that plainly showed the most fundamental way in which the capitalists (the ruling class then and now) exploit the masses and how that exploitation is the basis for the existence of the capitalist class. It’s very much the foundation for why it is even a necessity for, as you said, the powerful to trick us about what our interests actually are. But you don’t have to read his work directly to get a basic and general understanding of what he said. The same way you don’t have to read Darwin in order to develop a basic and general grasp of evolution. However, in both cases you do have to engage with some of the actual material on the topic so as not to come away with a false understanding of it, e.g. a creationist’s cartoonish understanding of natural selection (“my grandpa wasn’t a gotdamned monkey!”) or a right-winger’s ridiculous notions of communism (“the tankies want to steal my toothbrush!”)

Spoken like a true commie

Indeed it is, hence it being absolutely correct.

should apply to China, seeing how most of their bad shit happend internally with the notable exceptions of Taiwan and Hong Kong

Those are still internal to China. I can understand that people are ignorant of the fact that Taiwan is part of China given the rhetoric around it and the fact that it is still provisionally ruled by the ousted rump-state nationalist government that still thinks it’s the legitimate ruler of Mongolia too. Taiwan IS part of China, but there IS something being actually being contested there. But Hong Kong? Hong Kong unambiguously is in China, it’s just one of the Special Autonomous Regions, but even they themselves consider themselves part of China, not “external” to it.

Also, it’s not “bad shit,” it’s treating reactionaries with relatively kid gloves.

There is a distinctive difference between Russia and China, despite both belonging to same political alliance and both have a dictatorial leaderships.

China does not have a “dictorial” leadership. As for Russia, well it’s leadership is no more “dictorial” than that of any western “democracy” leadership. Their “political alliance” is still relatively loose, and the only way in which they could be considered part of the same “axis” (not a word you used, but still kind of implied) is because the US’s belligerence against them both has driven them closer together.

Hating west/USA and loving either of them would make one a campist,

Hating the west/USA is just a matter of simultaneously knowing history and being a compassionate, empathetic human being. And I would bet that most of the people you would say “love” either Russia or China rather just support their actions and goals, probably very critically in the case of Russia, and do so for rational reasons based on the true behavior of those countries. That is not campism. Campism is when you support (or “love”) a country not because its actions genuinely align with your own ideals or ideology but purely because you identify with it. Interestingly, it largely stems from a failure of self-awareness. There absolutely are campists for Russia and for China, I am not denying that at all. But despite what the libs here say, you won’t find very many of them on lemmy. Most of the people on lemmy support these countries for very rational reasons regarding ideology and their geopolitical conduct.

but I’m not sure about that qualifyng as tankie.

I always understood it to be a derogatory term for the general authoritarian communist/pseudo-communist block more so than applying to all national supermacists.

This is more or less correct. Most campists on lemmy support the US/NATO and they certainly aren’t tankies by anyone’s standards. You’re right about it always having been solely a derogatory term for certain radical leftists, nowadays usually those who support countries whose governments are fighting western imperialism. But like many others have said in this thread, it is becoming so diluted that merely not supporting the fascist DNC has been enough to get a person labeled a tankie. The silly “authoritarian” part mostly came into play once liberals started using the term and (as usual) completely not understanding its origins (origins that have to do with a specific uprising in Hungary in the 1950s).

Eastern Ukrain was genocide, then what is happening to the Uygurs is definitely also genocide.

Except in Ukraine people did die and their heritage and language were being actively suppressed, etc. We know this because it is documented all over, even in pictures on the net. These specific things are readily confirmable. It was even a large impetus for a broader war, as hopefully you’re aware. There is zero question that Ukrainian nazis were shelling Russian-speaking civilians in the Donbas and that Ukraine as a state was passing laws detrimental to Russian speakers.

In Xinjiang, no such evidence exists because nothing of the sort happened. It’s based on a lie dreamed up by one Christian fundamentalist Adrian Zenz. Every source on this “genocide” traces back to him, and none of the claims are confirmable. Even to the UN! In fact you, yes, even you if you have the means to travel, can go there today and see for yourself that the Uyghur population is thriving and they will laugh if you tell them they’re being genocided. I’ll leave the academic discussion for exactly where to draw the line for the definition of the term genocide to others for now. But based on how you were defining it, Ukraine was committing genocide, but no, China was doing quite the opposite by encouraging ethnic diversity. Again, go see for yourself like this person did: Oh yeah, just look at all that genociding going on!

Behold, fellow lemmy browsers: here^ we see the scratched liberal as their mask starts to slip. Not unlike the “UHMUHRICA! Love it er LEAVE it!” style of chud. They have a similar simplistic and deeply uncurious faulty view of the world, a view desperately clung to even when they are shown it is undeniably false, for self reflection is too frightening a concept for them even to consider.

Russia entered a conflict that was already in progress, a civil war where the Ukrainian coup government was attempting to ethnically cleanse the Russian speaking population in the east. This coup was orchestrated by the US (this was obvious, admitted to in recorded phone calls, and was rife with high US politicians (John McCaine for example) going there to celebrate. The US/NATO also funded the training and arming of openly neo-nazi militias like Azov Battalion, (and others) many of whom were the ones shelling the people in the East long before Russia intervened. All of this was done by the US to exert pressure on Russia. And this is just scratching the surface. So no, Russia did not “do this to itself” and your framing of it is naive and simplistic and just plain false.

I am genuinely glad to see you reognize the villainization of China, but please also apply those same critical thinking skills to what you have been told about Russia in the Ukraine conflict and do some digging into the history that doesn’t rely on western propaganda.

I cannot take you seriously if you willfully swallow the firehose of US propaganda about how cHiNa BAD ebil aUthOrItArIaN when it’s a country whose government has the enthusiastic approval of over 90% of the population, the country that lifted 850 million people out of abject poverty, the only large country doing anything significant about the mass extinction event that is climate change, the country that… well, I could go on. But no, keep believing those lies like a good lil western capitalism enjoyer.