- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
ID: 3 panel comic:
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A surprised looking person pops in to existence on a floating rock surrounded by fire, next to the devil.
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The person asks “wait a second-- why’d I end up in hell??”
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The devil, now taking up the entire frame, replies: “because centrism enables fascism”
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Refusing to vote because “I’m sick of <whatever>” also enables fascism.
First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
- Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context for readers: The direct action MLK Jr spoke of was political action and progressive legislative reform. The reason I bring this up is sometimes Tankies and Anarchists use his words to incite violence, which MLK Jr would strictly oppose.
Non-violent protest is an opening offer, not the endgame. It’s a promise not to be violent so long as there’s an honest dialoge.
Without the threat of eventual violence, they have no reason to listen at all.
You’re not arguing against me, you are arguing against civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. and he can’t hear you.
Says the white moderate who was taught so by the establishment that doesn’t want you to consider violent opposition to their violent oppression a viable option, which he absolutely did, as, without even the slightest sense of irony because the reality is going over their head in its entirety, they tell you they "agree with you in the goal you seek, but cannot agree with your methods of direct action”.
Perhaps educate yourself on MLK and what he actually stood for, rather than what those who murdered him for opposing them want you to know, before you so confidently spread misinformation and continue in the task of whitewashing his legacy.
"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself.”
1964, I guess white oppressors forced him to write this.
One of my most used quotes, in fact I used it earlier today, it’s just so fucking accurate.
I consider it to be the defining quote on how I choose to act as a person. If my words or actions aren’t aligned with the goal of total liberation, then I immediately reassess my position.
Definitely words to live by.
If a Nazi sits down at a table of 3 and nobody says anything. There are now 4 Nazis at that table.
My first saved comment on Lemmy.
I’m using this. Thanks!
If a centrist sits down at a table of three, and the three string him up and punish him for not falling into line… There were never less than three Nazi’s at the table.
But if nobody says anything, how do you know the fourth person is a Nazi?
I guess it’s assumed that you know that person is already a nazi, for example the person is Elon Musk. He won’t say anything, but you still know that he’s a nazi
3+1=4
Yes I’m glad you can do simple addition, but how’s your reading comprehension?
Good to know you’re the +1
No, I’m just trying to understand your logic.
A silent nazi sits at a table with three other silent people. Now they are all nazis?I believe the intention of that quote was that the other three knew the first was a Nazi.
There is nothing to call out or act on, if you do not know.
No, what you’re trying to do is twist the saying so it doesn’t apply to you.
Nowhere does it say anyone is silent. The Nazis are known to be Nazis, and you trying to find ways for it to be ok for you to sit with them is all the excuses we need to know that you are, in fact as has already been pointed out, the +1.
They literally said “nobody says anything”.
And it doesn’t say the nazi was known to be a nazi. You’re the only one twisting things here.I don’t hang out with nazis. To be frank I’ve been lucky enough to have never met one in person.
I just think it was a poorly worded message.
I’m totally fine, on paper, with actual centrists. It’s just that they actually seem to actually exist in the real world. Everyone claiming to be one is really just a right-wing conservative who’s afraid to say so.
I’m totally fine, on paper, with actual centrists
I’d like to know what I’m in the center of. Because if it’s a Nuremberg Rally, maybe that’s not where I want to be.
There is a middle ground between the unregulated facists capitalism of today and the anarchy or authoritarian socialism of tankies.
That middle ground means that capitalism is allowed but is regulated. Minimum wage is a living wage, slave or child labor products are not allowed on the market. We do have social services including healthcare and UBI. However, there is no middle ground on perceiving much less treating anyone as lesser. Nazis and supremacist groups and systems are stamped out like the filth they are.
There’s no lasting compromise with capitalism. Capitalism inherently depends on and leads to a concentration of wealth and power.
Capitalists can and do use that wealth and power to pervert the political system to their advantage, eventually chipping away at those regulations and social services. We saw this happen with the erosion of the gains from the New Deal and Union power over the late 20th century in the US and even in Europe we’ve been seeing austerity and far right parties start to take power and try to do the same.
Political freedom and equality is intrinsically tied to economic freedom and equality. We can’t really build a better society while there are still people with the means and motive to pull us back into servitude.
middle ground between the unregulated facists capitalism of today and the anarchy or authoritarian socialism
Sure. You can enjoy the moderate centrism of the LAPD, the United Fruit Company, and Focus on the Family.
Nazis and supremacist groups and systems are stamped out like the filth they are.
No they aren’t. They’re in the highest eschalons of authority.
Bud, I’m talking about what a middle ground centrist would want. It’s certainly not the past or current US government. It’s a lot lefter than is even available as choices besides maybe Bernie and the Squad. It just isn’t as left as tankies dream of.
Please read literally any socialist theory. Or at least any criticism of the Nordic model from the left.
And understand that “middle ground” arguments are fallacious and something being the middle ground does not make it the better or correct option.
Edit: Why Social Democracy Isn’t Good Enough - Second Thought
I usually don’t listen to videos but since you’re respectful so far I did listen to this one. We agree with the current reality of the system. I think what is neglected is that additional regulation (laws and constitutional amendments) are the only nonviolent way for a society to change. Enough good regulation results in first social democracy then moving closer to socialism. The major requirement is for companies/ceos/shareholders to be prevented from having the poison pill influence that they do under even Nordic social democracy. Sufficient taxation above a given limit is a relatively simple way of preventing the wealth hoarding that lets a person or company have that influence and preventing acquisitions and mergers that prevent diversification of economies.
I just don’t see the class/general consciousness necessary for “true” socialism to succeed being present in our lifetime. I can see social democracy as possible because of Bernie, AOC, and renewed working class solidarity.
That middle ground means that capitalism is allowed but is regulated
Lmfao, here’s a clue - capitalism IS regulated, and it’s still decaying in to fascism, because that’s what capitalism does.
Which is the perfect example of how centrism enables fascism - because you prioritise capitalism and its status quo along with the privileges they grant you, over the lives of the people it oppresses, marginalises, and literally kills to exist.
You are part of the problem, no matter how much faux logic you use to try and maintain your own cognitive dissonance.
Capitalism will always try and prioritize profit over all else. Effective regulation(again that doesn’t currently exist same as your tankie utopia) would enforce protections and itself be protected from capitalist interference. The problem for either of us is that greed exists, some people will always want more. No governmental change will remove them from society, unless you want to debate what scale of greed is allowable before a summary execution. I’d say allowing their existence within a limited framework that protects the rest of us without murder is better.
You are still talking about what is in this debate rather than what could be. An ideology of black and white absolutism inherently makes a “purity test” hierarchy. It’s why you’re already attacking me as part of the problem instead of any attempt to change my perspective. Same issue happened at both the first and second international because Marx and his followers didn’t believe in antiwar general strikes. At least we agree on something much more left than we have.
Any system devolves to some form of shit of allowed.
For real. We just need laws for people instead of corporations. Not an upheaval of society. I want to go to work and the supermarket and on a walk, not live in rags in tunnels hiding from robot spider things
You might want to learn what centrism actually is. Hint: it’s not a political position unto itself.
It doesn’t help that it seems the vast majority of people think that “centrism” is a political position unto itself, defined by being on the fence about everything and never committing to any stance on any issue.
As opposed to the actual definition, which is just someone whose collective of political positions is such that it’s not really accurate to refer to them as either kind of -winger.
It’s kind of like the bisexuality of politics. Actually, as I write that, a lot of biphobia, which comes from both the homo and hetero, is kind of rooted in the same bullshit ‘logic’. Just like the majority mentioned above see centrists the way I described, biphobes see bisexuals as indiscriminate sluts who are willing to bed anyone and everyone, as opposed to simply someone who is capable of being attracted to members of either sex.
If someone is “left-leaning” or “right-leaning”, that is an actual centrist, by definition. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be merely a ‘lean’.
centrists are close to the status quo common sense view.
the status quo is soon-to-be-mask-off-fascist neoliberal capitalism. which is very much right wing. which makes them (inadvertently or not) right wing.
they are even if they dont understand politics at all so they dont even know exactly what they believe in as long as their support ends up going to them.
you can be slightly left from right, that doesnt fundamentally change.
Problem is accepting the reality would mean they have to confront the fact that they’re on the wrong side of it, so they will do everything in their capabilities not to.
Lmmfao, GTFOH, centrist aren’t “oppressed” so you can fuck off with trying to compare them and their shitty choices in life to actual marginalised people who are actually oppressed for how they were fucking born
I like how you quoted a word that literally appears nowhere in my comment, lmao.
Also, learn how analogies work, goofball. You did the equivalent of reacting to me saying
eating breakfast and getting dressed are both things you do in the morning
with
Lmmfao, GTFOH, clothes aren’t ‘food’ so you can fuck off with trying to compare them"
which ties neatly into why they want “freedom” so much.
they want the freedom to be openly fascist.
Hi that’s me. Left leaning moderate. I disagree with a bunch of the crap on the left but I really don’t like a lot of what the right pulls either.
I will say that people on the left tend to violently push me away when we disagree on something where as the right tends to go “yeah I disagree with you, but you can hang out here if you want”. So it’s really easy to see why so many people have been pulled to the right over the last 10+ years. I’ve witnessed it first hand when I started doing it myself. I was staring down the far right pipeline and I turned around to go back home to the left but they didn’t want me anymore because I had dared to even look the other direction for awhile.
I’ve seen it happen to friends and family as well. I still talk to them, but man… I wish the left would stop shoving people out when they could be allies.
people on the left tend to violently push me away when we disagree on something where as the right tends to go “yeah I disagree with you, but you can hang out here if you want”.
:-/
Conservative: I have been censored for my conservative views
Me: Holy shit! You were censored for wanting lower taxes?
Con: LOL no…no not those views
Me: So…deregulation?
Con: Haha no not those views either
Me: Which views, exactly?
Con: Oh, you know the ones
Cool fake conversation, lol.
Though I can say from experience, you will get abundant flak on Lemmy for even suggesting that maybe the US government has a bigger problem with poorly spending the taxes it already receives, than with not raising enough tax revenue.
My guy, put down the Ayn Rand and come up for air.
Keeping up the streak of making random shit up about people, I see, lol.
If it’s the “online” left then I think it’s the “online” part that’s mostly the problem. People tend to be serious assholes when the interaction is distant and you’re just an “other.” Left, right, or center, too many people are comfortable with being insufferable cunts with no respect online. :(
Or maybe people are just sick of coddling fascism enablers and giving them the benefit of the doubt when they just keep proving over and over that they don’t deserve it… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I am deeply interested in immediately exemplifying exactly the sort of behavior you just described
The constant purity testing on the left is real. As well as relentless and obnoxious. It seems like that side is the undisputed champion of making perfect the enemy of good.
I’ve been told I made people in a left-wing friend’s group chat feel, and I quote, “unsafe” when I casually suggested being careful not to overfocus on self-labeling oneself, that it’s important to remember you’re an individual who’s more than a laundry list of categories.
Unsafe? Really? lol
Constantly infighting. I swear the Democrats do more damage to themselves than the Republicans could ever hope to achieve. It’s actually nuts.
The capitalist status quo is protected by a political wing we call “liberalism” and a paramilitary wing we call “fascism.”
Carrot and stick, good cop/bad cop - pick your metaphor.
For far too long, leftists have laboured under the delusion that liberals are merely “misguided” people that can be “pushed” left as soon as we could get them to read this or that book by our favourite Beardy McDeadguy. This kind of understanding of these people we call “centrists,” “moderates,” and, by far the most accurate term, “liberals,” completely ignores the fact that it is liberalism - not fascism - that is the true ideology of privilege. Privilege that means that liberals are even more invested in the maintenance of the status quo that the rank and file of fascism are.
The left has always proven itself capable of defeating fascists - but it seems that it has no real answer to the insidious, co-opting tentacles of the liberal and the mountain of lies liberalism is built upon.
You’re right. I’m a liberal and we don’t like you leftists. Get out of our party and start your own. You’re the real fascism enablers.
Your party didn’t support gay marriage rights until what 2012 (at the behest of actual leftists and when it finally became politically expedient) and its major health care success was a Heritage Foundation plan full of means testing. It also actively supports an ongoing genocide.
Liberalism can never inherently provide a useful answer to the problems of capitalism, inequality, and climate change because it must protect private property rights and capital. Your party answers to corporate interests and that is a known fact.
Trump literally ran on anti-NAFTA and uses immigration as a scapegoat for peoples’ economic woes.
You’re the real fascism enablers.
Keep telling yourself that, liberal… especially when you watch the liberals you vote for “reaching across the aisle” to your fascist cousins.
So your solution is to increase the genocide and hostility while also pushing us further away from democracy? That just sounds like you’re resigned to being stupid and evil.
So your solution is to increase the genocide and hostility
That’s not my “solution,” liberal - that is what your precious status quo will be doing anyway.
No, that is a choice that you made. The two options were less and more and by abstaining from less you got more.
No, that is a choice that
Again, liberal. That’s not my “solution” - that is what your precious status quo will be doing anyway.
If you’re not with us then you’re against us. I think the bad guys actually coined that phrase.
“How about just a little genocide?”
You’re not morally superior for picking complete annihilation over drawn out conflict. You’ve only increased the blood on your hands.
Neat.
Remember kids get radicalized or you’ll go to hell.
You don’t have to be a radical to support progressive reform. If anything, a lot of Radicals believe the “both sides bad” flavor of Centrism.
Looks like the real problem here might be simpletons who believe in a good place and a bad place. They are so busy thinking about silly useless things that they don’t bother with where they are at right now. How many people are harmed daily by useless myths? Such as a place called hell which was a garbage dump in ancient israel before they abandoned it or a being who judges you there.
“Jesus christ, that’s the shit you got me on?”
*Scribbles “lord’s name in vain” on list
How dare you not be an extremist!
Antifascism is not an extreme position
The correct answer/opinion is not always the middle of two “extreme” options. Thinking so is fallacious.
Abolition was “extreme” during the time of slavery.
Letting perfect be the enemy of the good enables fascism.
Ah, yes, the centrist’s mantra… 🙄
good is when genocide got it
Is centrism the word fascists from both parties are using to get you to line up and vote for the destruction of our republic? “Don’t blame me, I voted for kodos!”
Felt a little called out?
Center means you think both red & blue are fucking lunatics.
Thinking both sides are lunatics and you have the only rational take can also be a symptom of being an edgelord.
Yup and neither side can stand that position. I don’t enable either side but they are still at it.
I don’t know what you think “the center” is, it doesn’t mean being undecided or voting against human rights. The Left is not a religion, and anything which demands “with us or against us” membership is not any better than fascism.
If you feel personally attacked by this, it’s you.
I don’t feel personally attacked by it, I was just commenting
It’s you. You’re the meme. You’re going to hell when you die.
I am not seeking validation from any far leftists here, I only make these posts because it’s important for left leaning folks to know where their opinions suck. The far left wants to run the world like a charity project. No one asks to be born, so no one owes anyone anything. People should be humane because those are useful values for societal organization. But some people can weaponize kindness and use it against those who possess it, like those who do so in abusive relationships. There’s near overlap between countries receiving foreign aid and being high in corruption. Should we be taxing the wealthy higher to address a lot of these problems and also threats to democracy? Yes, people on the right and left admit this. But I can’t even take some of the leftist arguments seriously because they lack any understanding of reality, and repeat only average college student arguments. I am bored with this.
Lmfao, in other words, your only knowledge of leftism is what centrist and fascists have told you, and you’ll take their word without any hesitation or effort to educate yourself on reality, because this is so much easier and more convenient.
Real hell would be having to listen to leftists all fuckin day.
