orioler25

If had a nickel for every time I had a person with a passing interest in Marxism mansplain the world to me. This is a starting point, materialism is not exclusively how socialists and anarchists criticize or understand capitalism. You seem to think this is contradictory, which should spur you to question something more fundamental instead of assuming others are just dumber than you. "Coordination" would require a conspiratorial level of organizing between groups that, while maintaining common interests, distorts the reality of this system to the point of incomprehensibility. If your way of thinking finds it impossible to analyze the interaction between people -- individual actors -- and the system they are positioned in -- as in their class interests -- then you will find this system incomprehensible. This is so because, guess what, there *are* individual actors who are not *powerlessly* making decisions in accordance with their positionality. In order to do that, you must start understanding these things as relational. There are class interests motivating these policies, those class interests are not the *sole* mover of these actions. To suggest as much would do what you are trying to do right now, which is universalise human action. I wonder if you've thought about power dynamics in indigenous nations under settler-colonialism, and what it would mean to only interpret their navigation of this system with the frameworks that originate from Europe with the goal of understanding European ways of organizing. How do you understand conflicting interests within shared classes even under the same material conditions? Getting fuckin tired of people on here presuming they're all-knowing; many of these interactions happen to occur in discussions on Europe, go figure. Won't be responding to anything else from you unless it is actually serious.

Strange, I didn't realize there was any non-liberal, anti-capitalist states within the EU. I think you've misunderstood the point, what I'm saying is that these sorts of policies are an inevitable consequence of liberalism because it requires an oppressive level of population control to function. The internet is a threat to that control, and therefore liberal states have responded predictably and consistently by moving to create as many vectors of restriction and punishment as they can. The UK is not part of the EU, Canada (which has been pushing for this for half a decade now) isn't, Australia isn't, but they are all capitalist and imperialist liberal states.

I don't know how contrived the mechanisms have to be before people just accept that these ideological forces do not need *specific* mechanisms to exist. Tech firms did not produce liberalism and capitalism, as they did not exist when these ways of organizing emerged. Everything you described here are consequences of this system and the means by which it reproduces itself, they are not the system itself. Yeah, they organize, they do so because they have a common interest which is capital, and the imperatives of profit and infinite growth historically manifest consistently in formal and informal mechanisms of control like this. Class warfare doesn't apply here any better than it does to the informal consequences of neoliberal individualism which is both intentionally reinforced in media and culturally through its subscription by middle-class property owners. It may look coordinated, but that term distorts how these systems of power function and reproduce by creating the narrative that there is a select group of people responsible for this outcome, even while individual actions are taken to realise it.

It's not "coordinated" any more than every action in service of capital is. These policies and values coincide because all of these liberal states share common imperatives. The internet is a problem for liberals; it is impossible to fully control without diminishing its use for industry, anti-capitalism has flourished online even with the overwhelming corporate promotion of fascism and liberalism, and the international nature of the medium has made imperialism more visible to the metropole than ever. They correctly identify that the internet is a threat to their security, and they are moving to secure it and punish as many people as they can to discourage its use for disruptive purposes.

Of course, "the billionaire class," is what you arrive at from learning. Good thing that's the end of the line and there is no point in interrogating how a "billionaire class" happened in the first place.

Not like, the system that enabled it? Was the country good when it was built on genocide and slavery? Was it healthy when it invaded colonized countries that elected governments who wanted to challenge its global imperialism? Prison industrial complex was a good workout routine was it?

You know this is more embrarrasing than just admitting you were wrong or not answering at all. A desperate plea to feel smarter than someone who is very obviously more educated than you on a topic just comes off as childish and uncomfortable. You need to find other avenues for validation, I won’t be responding to anything else from you.

Refer to my other comment for an explanation on why this comparison is drawn. But, because I get the impression that you seem to think you’re an expert on this topic even though there is fundamental knowledge gaps in what you’ve said throughout this thread, could you explain to me the functional, affective difference between what is explicitly and implicitly Christian in these images? That “secularism” is a reproduction of Christian values is not a new or even challenging argument, it has been a common understanding of this period since the 1950s and especially so after decolonial scholars and post structuralists started writing about it. I’m excited to see how you disagree, I’m sure it is very well-informed.

Wow, I’m not going to lie, I’m surprised I have to explain this particular element of this. So, the thing is, people can say something and mean something different. I picked social Darwinsism as an example both because it was “secular,” was proliferated through the US largely through Christian proselytization, and happened to legitimise preexisting settler-colonial notions of race and class. When people say it isn’t Christian, they are doing so to salvage those settler values (inextricably linked to Christianity both ideogically and historically), not actually transition away from them. In the same way liberals today will often speak of anti-racism and anti-transphobia, but never about how those movements are fundamentally opposed to a liberal system. Also, this may be a result of the difference in Christian architecture through much of the US today, but the painting of Washington in the clouds with angels on the inside of a dome is nearly triggering for me in its familiarity as someone who has been subjected to Christian and Catholic churches for much of my life. Even if that wasn’t so, and this was meant to evoke some vague sense of divinity, I’m afraid that would still be religious, and the fact that it is in a neoclassical building further demonstrates the attempted continuity between ancient Roman and Greek imperialism through the evokation of their religious iconography, which is where much of the Christian imagery in Euro-imperialist countries developed from. You know why JFK used Winthrop? Anxiety over his identity as a Catholic in a majority Protestant country. If you don’t actually analyze what people say, and only take them at face value, you are going to be taken advantage of very often. Now, before you respond, you worded this comment as though you think youre some authority on the topic (stating your views as fact), so I hope you can at least stop and reconsider how you know what you think in light of this.

There is a direct trajectory of abstraction between these sorts of cartoons and the chad/soy meme, including the white supremacy that is so popular with people who use it unironically.

Mhm, now you’re recognizing the cultural and historical contexts, which is good, but you’re doing it as though it is insulated from religiosity. Yes, they are likely drawing on the neoclassical architecture that the US was and is obsessed with, have you considered why that is and specifically why it is popular in a culturally Christian country? Ever seen the inside of the capitol building’s dome constructed in 1865 (literally called The Apotheosis of Washington?) Yes, liberals have and continue to act religiously about their ideology, and “objectivity” is a major element in how they legitimised it in response to secularism. Social darwinism, something that has never been scientifically substantiated but none the less has had tremendous influence on “secular” thinkers, emerged in the US for the same reason in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. The image you posted draws on the imagery it draws on exactly because it is legible to Christians and draws on Christian values.

Which means we should erase the experiences of people who are literally being thrown into camps on the basis of race, legal citizenship, and class? Like, you don’t seem to realise that the talking point you just used is common in discourses that seek to minimize the harm of these groups. White women suffragests insisted all women had a shared experience while obviously disregarding black women’s oppression, gay men were infamously uncooperative with lesbians and gender queer people in their activism even while claiming to speak for us all on the basis of a commonly “gay” sexuality, respectable middle-class queer people today dominate queer activism and have effectively disarmed its material and social critiques of settler-colonialism exactly because they identify their needs as universal.

Okay, but they experience oppression in a very different way that also normalizes racialization and classism, which racialized trans women who disproportionately experience material insecurity obviously experience. If the point of the post is to demonstrate that these rights are interdependent, then all vectors of oppression must be acknowledged and challenged.

That’s the point. They’re trying to construct more favourable routes of “progress” that can leave particular groups vulnerable as liberals secure their position in a post-Trumo regime. You never see them talk about Land Back either.

Is a shining beacon on the hill meant to be like, not religious?

“Democracy,” “modernity.” Yup, there’s the liberalism. They want to defend “rights” because they know that civil protections legitimise their legal system; which is fundamentally oriented toward capital and private property. Civil rights are a negotiation that utilizes the state monopoly of violence to hold vulnerable groups hostage. “Modernity,” being associated with the moral right of human recognition carries with it a fundamentally settler-colonial conception of time that naturalizes this system by positioning it as the inevitable consequence of human organizing (“progress”). They’re manoeuvring criticism of fascism into support of liberalism, which is not oppositional to fascism and is the only real thing that keeps these groups vulnerable in the first place. fuck me dude so tired of this shit.

I think you’re underestimating how much of a problem liberal states are in their use of soft power. I don’t doubt that most Linux users and devs would resist, I’m saying that it would definitely be a threat for liberal states to dedicate resources to influencing norms and access. They don’t need to “win” as in complete and utter domination of every aspect of development for Linux to have a massive and negative effect. Think about how much more labour the US state has at is disposal than the entirety of the Linux community; how much more resources it has that could be dedicated to the privileging of projects that do comply. Yes, how to resist is certainly important to consider, but there’s no way to design that resistance if you ignore the tools at their disposal. Look at how big Zorin got from just a timely marketing campaign or the fact that corporate- and enterprise-oriented revenue models are already deeply influential on the landscape even without state promotion.

Oh, no it wouldnt be like “we’re mandating this through legislation,” because that is typically really hard to defend. They’re more likely to simply provide subsidies or some sort of financial benefit to larger, more compliant entities.

This is a very importrant thing to keep in mind. Liberalism is exceptional at appropriation and assimilation, and there is already a tremendous amount of corporate influence on the trajectory of Linux development. Since the open source nature of Linux is fairly robust, this would mean that control would look a lot like accessibility and feature competition (think how Android has effectively muscled out alternative ‘open source’ mobile OS’s and functions as one of the most expansive data collection systems in the world). It likely would not be as immediate as this suggests, for exactly the same reason Linux is so preferable to proprietary operating systems, but examples like Zorin’s successful marketing campaign and paid services do point to a trajectory of corporatization separate from what exists in Redhat and Ubuntu.

Oh awesome, could you explain how making fun of fat people constitutes psychological warfare against Nazis? It’s not like a gun, because a gun is a fucking inanimate object, and society and culture are not. When you say that fatness is something that is akin to the same level of moral depravity as subscribing to genocidal politics, you are reproducing fascist constructions of the ideal human body and the relationship between physical deformity and social degradation. Liberals have used ageism, ableism, queerohobia and transphobia, racism, and yes, fatphobia to make fun of Nazis because most of them have no idea what is wrong about fascism besides the distastefulness of their tactics. It’s not about the language being “offensive,” it’s about anti-fascism. You wanna be a fascist or not?

Why is it important to make a fat joke about Nazis? Did you run out of things to make fun of them for being Nazis? Seriously y’all, for all the people on this site who fancy themselves as “leftists” or “progressive,” y’all use eugenicist talking points fucking costantly. You gotta stop making fun of Nazis for shit that has nothing to do with them being Nazis. If your only way to make fun of these people is to target other groups, I’m not sure what you hate about them besides the aesthetics.

I mean, I'm not.

Acting like Harris is an ally for queer people and isn't an imperialist is genuinely out of touch with reality. I get you want to blame people because the "worse" white supremacist was elected, but narratives like this will be used by the Democratic Party to continue the fascism if and when the Republicans lose power. Gavin Newsom isn't intentionally abandoning pro-queer performative politics for nothing.

Are you sure? All those people protested though...

Yes. Get the fuck over it and shut up.

Well deserved.

Go fucking do it then and save everyone else an immense amount of trouble bot.

I cannot express in words strongly enough just how little respect I have for who has the right to make what decisions in a wholly genocidal and imperialistic system. You think the legality is the problem, grow the fuck up. Do you know the indigenous name for the land you live on? Ask yourself why you would only notice the legitimacy of the US once its legal system is subverted and not when it fucking commits genocide to survive.