|
You could have some kind of union that takes into account the ideals of socialism, workers' councils, and republics with national character but which are not nation-states. That might be able to defeat fascism. e: 1941 snipe. 
Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 01:10 on May 9, 2020 |
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 16:21 |
|
|
ThomasPaine posted:I agree with most everything you've said but I'm leery of this - unless you've developed international class consciousness to the point where fascism is an impossibility any fascist state can only be beaten by the application of external military might. I'm not certain that acknowledging that is ceding the left ground. I suppose then you're getting into questions about the nature of the nation state itself though, and how socialism might interact with the concept prior to the establishment of global communism. I'm getting at the idea that the common conception of world war 2 is that the fascists just... happened, or that they happened because germany's national pride was suppressed by the nasty versailles treaty and if you do that then fascism happens (and you can't fly the st george cross any more it's political correctness gone mad by gum) or that it's just a moral failing of hitler personally who led the (probably dastardly hunnic brained of course) german people into it all by himself. There's no like, actual class based accurate thought about why people go far right or even the notion that it could be prevented by left wing politics. The only thing we can possibly do is keep fighting fascists when they happen and hope we keep winning and never mind the human cost. The same way we can only keep prosecuting the occasional rich prick who doesn't manage to quite get away with his crimes and this is clearly an indicator of how fair and good our justice system is, rather than acknowledging all the people who absolutely get away with (sometimes literal) murder because of their status and we certainly couldn't consider changing how society works so there isn't a perpetual torrent of that sort of rear end in a top hat being produced. The common conception of world war 2 fundamentally views it as a good thing because it focuses so heavily on how we won it and that was a good thing, and it never bothers to even consider why it, or any of the other wars, happened in the first place or whether they could have been prevented entirely. You can draw your own parallels between this and how good the government is for not killing literally millions of people with their handling of the pandemic.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:04
|
|
|
please refer to it by its correct name: War 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJf5wDGEiug
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:10
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:You could have some kind of union that takes into account the ideals of socialism, workers' councils, and republics with national character but which are not nation-states. That might be able to defeat fascism. If this was true surely we'd have heard of it by now.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:10
|
|
|
more anonymously briefed coronavirus messaging? ffs Visitors and Britons returning from abroad will be required to self-isolate for two weeks quote:
has the science "changed" again? e: *Although I have no idea if it's true or not. I feel like it must be true if everyone is infected, because at that point a new arrival couldn't infect anyone else, but there must be a threshold below which new outbreaks seeded by overseas arrivals are at least measurable compared to the existing community transmission rate XMNN fucked around with this message at 01:28 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:23
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:If your takeaway from world war 2 is that the only way to defeat a bad nation state with an army is a good nation state with an army you've already ceded the left ground entirely. what
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:24
|
|
|
like seriously how do you defeat a bad nation state with an army if you yourself do not have a better army lmao
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:27
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:There's no like, actual class based accurate thought about why people go far right or even the notion that it could be prevented by left wing politics. bullshit
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:29
|
|
|
If you want to look at the last 70 years and say that world war 2 stopped fascism then you're welcome to do so but I do not think it's a position that is very supportable. Because I think a much more accurate position would be that the process involved in mobilizing to fight the nazis was instrumental in normalizing their attitudes in the victors of that war. The only credible thing I can take away from that is that the national military model is fundamentally incapable of fighting fascism, because it itself reproduces it. You might as well take the position that feudal kings fighting each other is anti-monarchist. Or, as initially alluded to, that the solution to gun violence is simply to make sure everyone has more guns. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:46 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:39
|
|
|
Today I found out the sporadic pain I'd been having that I'd dismissed as a pulled muscle or trapped nerve in my back and a stomach ache was actually kidney stones, when the abdominal pain started getting really bad I initially ultra panicked and thought it was appendicitis and that it had already exploded. I guess this is better but apparently I have a lot more pain ahead so that's good.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:44
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:If you want to look at the last 70 years and say that world war 2 stopped fascism then you're welcome to do so but I do not think it's a position that is very supportable. Because I think a much more accurate position would be that the process involved in mobilizing to fight the nazis was instrumental in normalizing their attitudes in the victors of that war. World War 2 didn't stop fascism. It stopped mobilised fascism. You can stop regular fringe fascism by guiding people to the left and showing them how bankrupt an ideology it is. But once fascism becomes the state and starts to move? I'm sorry, but there's no way to deal with that except armed confrontation. Ultimately, it's inevitable and the only way to minimise the harm caused is to pick the right time to begin exerting force. This is not done by saying there's no place for violence in opposing fascism; all that achieves is to delay the violence until it's either too late to avoid normalising those attitudes - bad - or too late to win - worse.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:51
|
|
|
Which nation do you think is going to fight the next wave? Because I think that it's going to come dressed in a union jack and with a picture of churchill on the front. Which is exactly what I mean by "the national military model cannot fight fascism because it itself reproduces it." The UK and US are more likely to be the next fascists than to fight them, in no small part because the second world war mythology serves to confer a perpetual moral authority on everything the country does. The process by which the nation was mobilized to fight fascists is the exact same process that can be, and is, mobilized to promote fascism. Because the point is the nation, not the ideology, that is the failing of national frameworks for doing anything. Violently or not, I think the best hope for resisting fascism in the future is not going to be through the nation state, because at the rate we're going the next big war is just going to be half a dozen flavours of pseudofascist fighting each other. If there is hope I think it is in the rejection of the nation as a valid form of identity, whether that takes the form of armed insurrection or striking I don't know but I would certainly prefer the latter. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:23 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 01:58
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:
I think you've just managed to put your finger on why (pandemic situation aside) I've just checked out of the VE Day celebrations and found the whole circus so off-putting. I can remember the 50th VE Day celebrations in 1995. I was only nine, so obviously my perception and experience was different, but all the special lessons and field trips we did about WW2 and the Home Front, and the veterans and grandparents who were brought in to talk to us, made it clear that VE Day was a celebration that a long period of Bad Things was over. The 50th anniversary was about remembering and marking the achievement and the street party my village had was part recreation and part celebration that it had been 50 years since the last global total war. I'm sure there was jingoism and nationalist crap, but that wasn't my experience of May 1995. This time round the veterans and blitz survivors aren't around as much and the whole thing is, as you say, a twee cosplay of...I was going to say the Dad's Army version of WW2, but even Dad's Army had its more downcast moments when it reminded you of the broader context of the show. But it's all seemingly based on the idea that WW2 was a good experience and should be positively celebrated in and of itself, and all by people who didn't go through it. It's like how last year for the D-Day 75th I went with my mum to Southwick - the village outside Portsmouth where Eisenhower and Montgomery had their HQ during the landings. The whole village was decked out and dressed as per 1944 with loads of reenactors and vehicles etc. We got into an argument on the drive home because Mum (born 1955) said that the Home Front "must have been quite nice, really" because she'd just spent a sunny afternoon walking around a pretty village with Dig For Victory gardens, a NAAFI wagon in the square, a platoon of GIs on the green, a Vera Lynn-soundalike in the church hall and a practice air-raid siren at 3pm. Apparently pointing out that rationing, bombing raids, blackouts, the disruption of normal life, encounters with death and destruction, potential for fascist invasion and the continual lingering worry of friends and family being killed or maimed were also big parts of the Home Front experience, and that it went on for six years rather than three hours was just me "putting a negative spin on everything...and I thought you liked history?"
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:13
|
|
|
only abolishing the nation removes the possibility of inherently national fascism imo. The working class has no nation.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:22
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:If you want to look at the last 70 years and say that world war 2 stopped fascism then you're welcome to do so but I do not think it's a position that is very supportable. Because I think a much more accurate position would be that the process involved in mobilizing to fight the nazis was instrumental in normalizing their attitudes in the victors of that war. The only credible thing I can take away from that is that the national military model is fundamentally incapable of fighting fascism, because it itself reproduces it. As someone from a country that was slated to be genocided by the Nazis I always had a bit of a problem with accepting that. It's not like it's a unique viewpoint - you might even say it's the prevailing dogma among Quakers who I've spent a fair bit of time with - but just considering the terrible things my grandparents have gone through, with years of forced labour apart from each other in horrendous conditions, all on the basis of spurious Nazi 'race' science, well it's hard to dismiss the positives of the destruction of Nazi Germany. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 02:26 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:24
|
|
|
And if it stopped there and that was the end of the story I would agree with you.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:27
|
|
|
The problem with Hitler was that he's German.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:31
|
|
|
Fascism is the natural end result of capitalism so talking about beating fascism within a capitalist framework, within the geopolitical context of capitalist nation state frameworks, and via mechanisms of capitalist international engagement, is pointless. It's also why certain concepts, like "nationhood" or "imperialism" aren't inherently value-ridden, but entirely defined by their consequential relationships to the surrounding context. E.g. a large global superpower that was effectively communist, like a sort of fantasy version of the USSR, would have a moral duty to carry out imperialism of some sort, because as long as there are capitalist nations on the planet, the possibility of fascism remains.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:37
|
|
|
Coohoolin posted:E.g. a large global superpower that was effectively communist, like a sort of fantasy version of the USSR, would have a moral duty to carry out imperialism of some sort, because as long as there are capitalist nations on the planet, the possibility of fascism remains. Thank gently caress someone else is thinking this because let me tell you I expressed similar opinions on some leftbook group once and was thoroughly cancelled for it, but it's 100% correct. A genuinely socialist state is incapable of imperialism, and is duty bound to take an expansionist foreign policy.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:41
|
|
|
I would suggest that it might be a bit iffy to imagine that such a nation could exist and go around doing "moral" imperialism without becoming a bit... imperialist? Socialism is not some immutable national moral character and thinking it is is exactly the kind of thing that leads you to become a really lovely country. In fact it's literally exactly the thing I've just been describing except replace "socialism" with "fought fascism" OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 02:47 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:42
|
|
|
What if Iraq but actually everyone would definitely welcome us as liberators?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:43
|
|
|
Also it's the entire world
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:44
|
|
|
I mean obviously they wouldn't understand why we had to invade them and we'll just have to put them in some nice camps until they learn to be grateful for it.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:45
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I would suggest that it might be a bit iffy to imagine that such a nation could exist and go around doing "moral" imperialism without becoming a bit... imperialist? Oh absolutely but it's just a thought experiment assuming you had a perfect flawless socialist state, which is obviously pretty drat improbable. That said, I do think the principle of exporting revolution is sound even for imperfect socialist states, because hell give me a good thing done poorly over a bad thing done well any day. OwlFancier posted:I mean obviously they wouldn't understand why we had to invade them and we'll just have to put them in some nice camps until they learn to be grateful for it. Or alternatively you put the ones who insist on shooting at you in camps for a bit while providing dramatic improvements in quality of life for the rest until you get to a point where the shooty types can be safely released and seem like ridiculous extremists. Yeah, reality is messier and this is a hypothetical assuming total earnest good faith all round, but that's not the point.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 02:55
|
|
|
I would suggest that it is a quite sensible reaction to shoot at armies rolling down your street saying "we come in peace, don't mind the guns and tanks" and if you characterise doing that as being counterrevolutionary you're going to end up putting a lot of people in prison. And then presumably a lot more people to follow as you start imprisoning all the people who started shooting at you because you locked up their friends and family for shooting at you in the first place. And then you're definitely not doing an imperialism. It's not just a "perfect flawless socialist state" you're imagining, it's an entirely different concept of what people are. Exporting the revolution isn't a bad idea but doing it via invasion makes about as much sense as exporting healthcare by invasion.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:02
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:you're going to end up putting a lot of people in prison. And then presumably a lot more people to follow as you start imprisoning all the people who started shooting at you because you locked up their friends and family for shooting at you in the first place yeah probably
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:04
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I would suggest that it might be a bit iffy to imagine that such a nation could exist and go around doing "moral" imperialism without becoming a bit... imperialist? That's what this means: Coohoolin posted:It's also why certain concepts, like "nationhood" or "imperialism" aren't inherently value-ridden, but entirely defined by their consequential relationships to the surrounding context. Socialism is a normative concept, part of its definitional basis is that it has to do Good, otherwise what's the point? It emerged entirely from a critical framework that only existed because it needed to be a moral counter to the prevailing system, a system found to be cruel and immoral. A socialist country or system that does not result in a moral success, at least comparatively to the exploitation inherent to capitalism, is by definition Not Socialist. Part of how we define socialism extends beyond the descriptive parameters, because it is the product of a critical theory framework, which only exists in the first place to provide a normative counter to the status quo.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:10
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I would suggest that it is a quite sensible reaction to shoot at armies rolling down your street saying "we come in peace, don't mind the guns and tanks" and if you characterise doing that as being counterrevolutionary you're going to end up putting a lot of people in prison. And then presumably a lot more people to follow as you start imprisoning all the people who started shooting at you because you locked up their friends and family for shooting at you in the first place. And then you're definitely not doing an imperialism. Your still interpreting things entirely through a lens of capitalist definition and you're gonna be talking past any of the arguments you're addressing.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:11
|
|
|
Also you're gonna get some really weird looks if you go around saying "what if I... put my hypothetical utopian socialist tanks outside your house... aha ha, just kidding.. unless...?"
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:11
|
|
|
^^^^^^^ Case in point.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:12
|
|
|
Coohoolin posted:Your still interpreting things entirely through a lens of capitalist definition and you're gonna be talking past any of the arguments you're addressing. I'm interpreting things through a lens of "it's not as if we have historical precedent for countries that went around saying how socialist they were when they invaded people and therefore it can't be wrong when they do it" Like maybe that sort of thinking settles much more easily into self avowedly (and possibly self-believing) "socialist" countries what do imperialism than it does actual perfect socialism where invading people is totally justified? I have to say it's extremely weird and kind of ironic that you of all people are trying to wangle an argument out of the no true scotsman fallacy.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:16
|
|
|
...how am I trying to make an argument out of a fallacy?
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:24
|
|
|
You appear to be arguing that because socialist countries that do bad things aren't socialist, there is nothing wrong with saying that socialist interventionism is cool and good. Which is either no true scotsmanning every instance where socialist interventionism does bad (while arguing that nevertheless, in theory, it is a good idea) or it's completely divorcing yourself from actual material reality where you can slap the name socialist on anything with the right colour flag and a bunch of weird tankies will crawl out of the woodwork to stan it on twitter no matter how poo poo it is. It's particularly offputting because "sure this intervention made things much worse but we mustn't let that deter us from trying again in the future" is literally the mantra of alistair campbell and his horror show. It just doesn't make sense in the actual world we actually live in. Either that or you're arguing that "if valinor had an army it would be morally obligated to invade middle earth to stop sauron" is a meaningful political insight. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:32 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:29
|
|
|
That's not what I'm saying at all, maybe try again in the morning.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 03:58
|
|
OwlFancier posted:no true scotsman oh poo poo shots fired
|
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 04:12
|
|
|
Folks not on the far left do not, generally, believe in or subscribe to the left's identity of itself as the final and only bulwark against fascism
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 06:42
|
|
|
ronya posted:Folks not on the far left do not, generally, believe in or subscribe to the left's identity of itself as the final and only bulwark against fascism I don't think that's strictly a "far left" thing
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 06:57
|
|
|
ronya posted:Folks not on the far left do not, generally, believe in or subscribe to the left's identity of itself as the final and only bulwark against fascism Well of course not, because the centrists think they're anti-fascists but are all either amenable to fascism or think fascism is bad but the people trying to prevent it are just as bad and both sides have points and can't we all just get along oh dearie me I've got a touch of the vapours and must retreat to the fainting couch.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 06:58
|
|
|
Ms Adequate posted:Well of course not, because the centrists think they're anti-fascists but are all either amenable to fascism or think fascism is bad but the people trying to prevent it are just as bad and both sides have points and can't we all just get along oh dearie me I've got a touch of the vapours and must retreat to the fainting couch. Conversely, the historical pattern for communists is to maintain that it is the only true resistance to fascism - but when push comes to shove, what they mean is that everyone who is not a communist is a fascist. In fact, the "social fascists" are even more fascist than the people who call themselves fascists and are the true threat to the revolution
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 07:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 16:21 |
|
|
kingturnip posted:I don't think that's strictly a "far left" thing fair, but this is contextual, isn't it in the UK context Starmer hails from the soft left of the Labour party; ITT we have people writing as if he hails from the Tory right - maybe this thread is not the best frame of reference when wondering why Britain at large refuses to endorse the old GDR narrative of its role in the Great Patriotic War ronya fucked around with this message at 07:11 on May 9, 2020 |
|
#
?
May 9, 2020 07:07
|
|