#those aren't actual leftists

[korrasera]

So, the problem with this kind of callout is that it completely misrepresents both what Hasan said as well as the history of the situation.

And if all you do is react to words like colonising and primitive, anyone will be able to convince you to hate anyone for pretty much any reason.

So! Let's talk about what Hasan actually said and why he's saying it.

Hasan is specifically saying that China intervening in Tibet to end slavery was a good thing. That's it. That's the controversial take. But you don't get that if you just listen to the people who cosplay as leftists.

You can still criticize this take! He's praising China for overthrowing another nation state and supplanting their government. That's not great, but it's also not defending colonization and here's why.

China didn't do it to civilize Tibet, they did it to strengthen their border against the west during the Cold War and end Tibet's feudal rule. So, that's a nation seeking power, while also claiming to have an ideological motive to free people. Nations don't really have ideological motives, but in this case it doesn't matter because replacing Lamaists rule with Communist rule was absolutely a better thing for Tibet.

What actually happened is that political pressure (which included military posturing) from China along with a popular uprising of Tibetans led to a dramatic shift in Tibetan culture in which the Dalai Lama (of the time) was pressured signed an agreement to let China annex Tibet into the PRC. This came on the heels of the Tibetan government refusing to move away from their caste-based feudal system, something that created a lot of tension in the country following WWII.

That's the hinge here. The culture that was wiped out wasn't a culture, it was a government and a caste system that was used to oppress Tibet's culture. The Lamaists had authority over all other casts and the lowest casts were slaves that weren't even considered fully human. The comparison to US slavery in the South is an apt one.

Like, I'm sure the Dalai Lama is a great guy who cares a lot about peace, but he's the inheritor of a completely inhumane system of authoritarian government that made life hell for countless generations of Tibetan people.

You should listen to what Hasan actually said and then listen to what it was like for people who lived in slavery in Tibet if you want to understand this issue.

My suggestion is to not simp for people who would have been at home running a slave plantation in the US circa 1800.

[bijoumikhawal]

*sees a long post from an American comparing Cardassia to the USSR/China* *rolls eyes and keeps scrolling*

[highfantasy-soul]

People saying that those who think The Stranger has a point are dumb women who only can think with their sex drives just make me want to make a shit ton of thirst content defending him just out of spite.

Like, my actual view is that he's a super interesting character and we haven't seen enough of his philosophy/reasoning/full actions enough for me to have come to a decision about whether one might call him 'justified' or not. I think it's very purposeful that we HAVEN'T been given all that info about him, we've just been left to sit with our preconceived notions about what he MIGHT believe and I'm more than willing to ride this train to the end to see what the narrative is going for.

But just to spite what feels like super misogynistic takes about dumb women just forgiving a guy (for fighting back against an oppressor?) because he's hot, and we're just dumb dumb dummies who are so stupid and can't think critically about media at all, we just see pretty man and go googly eyes and ignore (imagined) sins of the character that apparently only the smarty smarts can see, I do kinda want to just go whole hog on "The Stranger has done nothing wrong, will do nothing wrong, and I'm going to woobify the shit out of him".

Even the comments trying to keep in the misogynistic takes' good graces by saying 'Look, we know he's evil! We're just having goof-ums!!' are a bit annoying because....it's again not showing a lot of openness to storytelling that doesn't follow the 'norms' or the 'tropes' you expect to see.

Genuinely, (as of episode 6), I don't think we've been shown enough about The Stranger to be able to decide if he's a justified dissenter of the Jedi Order or if he's against the order for more nefarious reasons - and I think that was purposeful on the part of the writers! Maybe he is a sith who wants to subjugate the galaxy!! Maybe!! But maybe he's not! The point is, we don't know yet and just because he wears black and is a bad ass who killed your faves doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about the character! Might I point you in the direction of Cassian Andor and Luthen as examples of ppl who kill not-always-evil ppl but we don't label them evil or fascists!

But red lightsaber always means evil, right? That's good media literacy, right?!?!

[rutadales]

I would rather spend time with any hick I grew up with who is genuinely accepting and understanding of queers but uses faggot bc he doesnt actually understand the weight behind slurs than a leftist who absolutely does but decides it's okay for people you don't like

[gu6chan]

People will be like "idc who you are, seriously block me if you do/support x" and then i block them and they react like this everytime

[accursedthing]

This election was decided by a Democratic candidate that refused to campaign on anything but "I'll do as little as possible to change anything" to an overwhelmingly dissatisfied population. You can blame every individual voter who didn't do what you wanted them to, or you can blame one actor we all knew was doing it wrong, who was yelled at for months that they were doing it wrong, and did it anyway. Are we really going to blame the political actors and system that created this situation or a public whose voice is repressed at every opportunity? Be serious

[oddlittlestories]

Look, I'm probably gonna delete this later

But I REALLY hate how tumblr treats professional authors, especially YA and new adult authors

"Oh, we're the anti-censorship website! Go read a horny book! Go read a banned book! No not that one, you're doing it wrong." /sarcasm (Seriously, ACOTAR was banned in Utah https://apnews.com/article/utah-school-book-ban-d7345be6a89cfa6cd2cb5ddd25fca700 and plenty of folks around here want to critique its sexual politics as unfeminist. Or those of horny monster books that are written by INDIE authors that actually have some things in common with books like ACOTAR. BTW, love that y'all hate big box publishing but also, indie writers who want to get horny with it are the devil. Because none of us around here ever like horny fics that get weird with it.)

"Oh, you should never write a book that's to-market! I don't write fanfic to market, only ridiculously rare rarepairs, hurt/no comfort only, with unsatisfying endings." /sarcasm (Most professional writers write to market in some way or another. But most fanfic authors do, too. You (generic) enjoy this as a reader, as long as its a market that's to your tastes.)

"No one ever does anything useful writing to market. There are no trends. POC writers don't use that as a tool to get their books published ever." /sarcasm (Listen to Deadline City to hear Zoraida Cordova and Dhonielle Clayton, two POC YA authors, discuss the tug of war with writing on trends, on markets, and getting published in general. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deadline-citys-podcast/ and before you go saying that's just an issue of capitalistic pressures—are you SURE. people write, in part, to meet an audience and change people's point of view. even on a site driven entirely by community, people feel pressure to write for more popular fandoms on ao3. so, again, are you SURE.)

but uh yeah no this site has no issue with censorship, supports indie authors getting funky with it just as much as indie artists, and has full respect for indie YA authors and genres they, themselves, don't personally like

[punkshitposts]

something I think is actually hilarious is that if you go left enough you start having more stances in common with (individual) conservatives, and if you go right enough you start agreeing with (individual) leftists. like i have a pretty close friend who's self described as "just far enough right that I hate politicians" , whom I hard disagree with his overarching political stances. but the finer details of it... yeah we agree with each other. gun control/gun rights opinions taxation opinions pro-small government opinions slight separatist opinions anti two party opinions anti-corporation opinion ect ect ect.

we stand on opposite sides of a standard political compass but I genuinely think if I were to count stats, I'd agree with as many of his stances as I would a liberals/democrats stances. my hs gov teacher described the difference in right vs left to us as "everyone's goal here is the betterment of mankind, they just think the best ways to do it are different" and that's literally the best way, to me, to describe what the difference in right vs left is regarding anarchism specifically. we got ESSENTIALLY the same opinion but the ways we think are the best ways to go about enacting said opinion are what makes us different. and something abt that is really painfully funny to me. envisioning a world where an-something is the major world thing, not capitalism.... and there's STILL right vs left... but The Anarchist Versions. christ.

sorry for the book i wrote in the tags. ignore typos I am NOT retyping any of that to fix them xoxo

[astralazuli]

So there's that D&D class quiz going around, & I took it & was so deeply offended I got Paladin.

& so I have had conversations with both Bestie & Birdfriend about this grave insult & they both were like, "Well... They have a point?" & informed me that my desire to absorb hits meant for others & deep drive to help whenever I actually can & strong convictions make me a bit Paladin-coded.

& I am just so... Idk. It's just interesting to get glimpses of yourself from other people's POVs. To be told that my defining characteristics are protecting & healing others & being incredibly fighty about the things I care about... Especially as someone whose brain specifically fixates on whether I care enough, do enough, give enough... Yeah. It's just kinda wild.

Anyway, I'm now adjusting my self-perception to include the fact that if I were a D&D character, I would be an Oath of the Ancients Paladin & not a wizard & that actually that's okay.

[traegorn]

This is the thing with the "I won't vote for Harris" supposed leftists.

None of them will tell you how allowing Trump to be elected helps.

Because they don't have an answer.

Because they don't really care about anything other than how they personally feel.

Actual leftism involves making pragmatic moves. The public will for revolution doesn't exist, and we live in a two party system. If you want to fight that system, great. There are things like ranked choice voting and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact we need to be fighting for. But those are fights that have to happen year round, at the state level, and not just in an election year.

And in the meanwhile, you vote defensively and strategically, in an attempt to save as many people as possible.

Saying you aren't voting for Harris isn't taking a stand against genocide. It's putting your head in the sand and admitting you care more about your own comfort than making a difference in the world.

Why aren't you getting involved in your local politics? Why aren't you running leftist candidates at a local level, so you can move them up in the system and eventually move the political discussion left. You want to know why politics have moved right? It's because the right wing has been doing that for decades.

Your refusal to participate won't save a single life.

It only means you're abandoning everyone else.

[torgawl]

i voted 😕

[snekdood]

idk but maybe some of the reason ppl see the internet as a politically unhelpful tool for activism is because most of the ppl who say that... kinda tend to be in an echo chamber already, or are just surrounded by people who already agree with them and the message doesnt reach farther. we need to find ways to appeal to more people than just the people we like.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

When you treat someone as the solution to all your problems, you tend to become pretty angry when they can't actually fix all those problems.

With the rise of weird fetishistic worship of indigenous people as "protectors of the land" in liberal and leftist circles, we're also going to be seeing a wave of backlash against indigenous people when things DON'T get fixed, accusations that we aren't really indigenous, and people turning back to the idea that we can't be trusted with our lands. When you are treated as a perfect savior, there is no room for failure.

[txttletale]

i think it's healthy as a communist blogger to follow at least one well-read and articulate social democrat on here because

1. it is useful and instructive to see challenges to your ideas that aren't straightforwardly evil. while obviously conservative viewpoints like "its good when children starve" should be dismissed out of hand but if those are the only opposing views you ever encounter your positions will lack rigour

2. it will illustrate to you exactly where, if anywhere, your positions actually diverge from social democracy, and therefore prevent you from becoming this website's most annoying kind of guy, "constantly talks up how nonspecifically 'radical' and 'leftist' they are and postures as a revolutionary while not actually holding any opinions to the left of like jeremy corbyn"

[fabiansociety]

there's been a post going around in the last several days about how leftists need to stop demonizing men, and particularly young men, if they want to deradicalize them, and i honestly have no idea what the heck they're talking about. there are a ton of men in leftist spaces — a disproportionately large number of men in a lot of them. a lot of leftist movements aren't just skewed male, they're fairly aggressive towards even basic sorts of gender demography or timekeeping.

but even leaving that aside, i don't think i've seen any leftists bag on men as a class? on the patriarchy, sure, on toxic masculinity, absolutely, inasmuch as people talk about men at all, but criticizing the patriarchy or toxic masculinity isn't criticizing men, no matter how much MRAs and incels and the antifeminist crowd try to frame it that way. i'm deeply suspicious of people who frame calls for basic dignity for women, for queer people, for trans and intersex people, as attacks on men; that doesn't speak to a willingness to actually listen.

i think we really do need to acknowledge that many men are in favor of male supremacy, and vote accordingly, the same way that many white people are in favor of white supremacy and vote accordingly. they may not phrase it in those specific terms, but that's the effect of their choices. and those choices are rational enough: there's a big percentage of the country that is willing to accept increasingly severe income inequality rather than lose the privileges their race and gender accord them, because those privileges are concrete and economic.

this isn't to say this is inherent to men: male supremacy and white supremacy are both philosophies that are constantly and insistently propagandized. but whether you frame your concerns harshly or gently, it's not the tone that ultimately matters. there are lots of people who experience any criticism, no matter how mild or general, as an existential attack on their personal identity.

i don't know what you do with that, i really don't. but it's not just or even primarily a matter of tone. people choose systems of power.

[qqueenofhades]

i registered to vote for the first time ( i feel old) now that im an adult but my state has closed primary elections which i was wondering if you have an opinion about. my initial thought was that its bad because i had to register democrat (rather than my states green party which represents my beliefs more) just so i could vote between democrat candidates, which feels like being pressured into supporting the weird pseudo two party system we have. but then i looked it up and apparently a reason for this is so that people from opposing parties wont purposefully mess up the votes just so that their preferred candidates have an easier time winning, and i think that makes sense too. but is that actually the reason theyve closed it or is it just to force us dem/republican?? cause it feels strange

Okay, look. I respect the fact that you're a young person, and I appreciate that you have not only registered to vote, but plan to vote in the primaries, so I don't want to lecture you too much. That said: I am taking you out for coffee, I am sitting you down, I am looking into your eyes, and I am urgently telling you the following:

The Green Party is a scam. It is a scam. It has existed for decades in American politics as an empty shell corporation weaponizing the good intentions of young people like yourself, because all it theoretically stands for "it's good to save the planet maybe." Which is not something that any non-insane person seriously disagrees with, but there is no world in which that cause is actually furthered by registering/voting Green (you mentioned that you did vote for Democrats, which -- good, but listen to me here, youngun, okay?) It ran Jill Stein in 2016 to siphon more votes from HRC, and this election it plans to run Cornel West, a pro-Russian tankie who positively equated Bernie and Trump, as another spoiler candidate. It does not stand for "protecting the planet" or America in any real way. It has never elected a single senator or congressman, let alone a president. It stands for empty performance/grievance political theater by those people who feel too morally superior to vote for/affiliate with Democrats, often because the internet has told them that it's not Cool or Hip or Progressive enough.

If your main priority is climate/the environment, you're doing the right thing by registering as a Democrat and voting for Democrats. (Also: the adjectival form is Democratic. It is the Democratic party and Democratic candidates, otherwise you sound like the Fox News host who wrote a book literally entitled "The Democrat Party Hates America.") They are the only major party who has in fact passed major climate legislation and have made environmental justice a central tenet of their platform. As opposed to the Republicans, whose Project 2025, along with the rest of its nightmare fascist prescriptions, openly pledges to completely wreck existing climate protections and forbid any new ones, just because we weren't all dying fast enough under their death-cult rule already. That's the main logical fallacy I don't get among both the Online Leftists and the American electorate in general: "the Democrats aren't doing quite enough as I'd like, so I'll enable the active wrecking ball insane lunatics to get in power and ruin even the progress we HAVE managed to make!" Like. How does that even make sense?

On a federal level, the Greens have contributed nothing whatsoever of tangible value to American or international climate policy/legislation, environmental justice, or anything else, because as noted, they don't have any elected candidates and mostly focus on drawing voters away from Democrats. There might be plenty of good candidates on the local or city level, which -- great! Vote away for Greens if they're available, or the only other option is a Republican! But on the federal/primary level, please understand: once again, they are a scam. There is no point in affiliating yourself with them. You're welcome to register Green and vote Democratic, if that makes you feel better or if you prefer having another label next to your name, but once again, I'm telling you in my position as a salty Tumblr elder that they have done nothing but harm to the causes they claim to care about, because "environment" is such a nebulous priority and has demonstrably been hijacked to stop the American government entity, i.e. the Democrats, that is actually working to improve on it.

As for your question: nobody is "forcing" or "pressuring" you to vote in primaries. By your own admission, you made a conscious choice to register as a Democrat in order to vote for Democratic candidates. If you were just a regular registered voter of whatever party affiliation, you would vote in the general election for whatever candidate the primary process produced. But if you are sufficiently vested and committed to that process that you would like to have a say in who is running under that party label, it is not unreasonable that you would register as a member of that party. Nobody has twisted your arm behind your back and made you do so; you are taking a considerable level of initiative on your own. Likewise, open primaries can be both a good and bad thing. This falls under the "the political system we have is flawed, but we can't magically pretend it doesn't exist and act according to our own fantasyland versions of reality" thing that I keep saying over and over. So yes, if you want a role in shaping the Democratic candidates who emerge from a Democratic primary process, you will usually register as a Democrat, and nobody has forced you to do that. It's that simple.

Likewise as a general programming note: I'm trying to cut back on politics a bit right now, because I don't have the spoons/bandwidth/mental health to deal with it. I apologize. So if you've sent me a politics-related ask recently and haven't received a response, I'm not deliberately or maliciously ignoring you; I just am not able to handle it as much as usual and will have to put it on pause. However, I feel as if this is important enough to be worth saying, so, yeah.