Biden raised nearly as much money as all the Republican candidates combined, showing the power of the somebody-other-than-Trump vote
OwenEverbinde @ OwenEverbinde @reddthat.com Posts 1Comments 78Joined 2 yr. ago
OwenEverbinde @ OwenEverbinde @reddthat.com
Posts
1
Comments
78
Joined
2 yr. ago
When you bring up the "dynamic of oppressed and privileged groups" are you referring to Marxism, and Marx's idea that all of history is the history of class struggles between oppressors and oppressed?
I can understand deciding that such a belief would compel Marx's followers (though not necessarily progressives) to be constantly on the lookout for oppressors and oppressed. But firstly, I'm not convinced that the above action -- identifying an oppressor -- is sufficient for a group marked as oppressors to face discrimination. And secondly, I'm not convinced that progressivism requires a class conscious (aka Marxist) lens. So, if you don't mind elaborating on your beliefs, I would appreciate if you answered these questions.
My Questions
- Regarding Marxists: must Marxists discriminate? Once a Marxist has identified an oppressed group and an oppressor group, must the Marxist thereafter be compelled to attempt discrimination against the "oppressors" ?
- Regarding Marxists again: can Marxists see an entire race as an oppressor class? Marx reiterated numerous times that ever since capitalism overthrew feudalism, there have been only two classes -- capitalists and workers. If one went about adding more oppressor classes and oppressed classes, wouldn't that contradict one of Marxism's core beliefs? How can one believe entire races are oppressor classes without abandoning the entire basis for class theory?
- Regarding progressives this time: must progressives believe in class conflict in the first place? After reading or skimming the Wikipedia page for progressivism do you believe that the progressivism described therein absolutely must require a Marxist lens? I'm including an excerpt from the page below, along with why I find the connection hard to see.
Excerpts from the Wikipedia page in question:
Excerpt 1:
As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization...
Excerpt 2:
In the 21st century, progressives continue to favor public policy that they theorize will reduce or lessen the harmful effects of economic inequality as well as systemic discrimination such as institutional racism; to advocate for social safety nets and workers' rights; and to oppose corporate influence on the democratic process. The unifying theme is to call attention to the negative impacts of current institutions or ways of doing things and to advocate for social progress, i.e., for positive change as defined by any of several standards such as the expansion of democracy, increased egalitarianism in the form of economic and social equality as well as improved well being of a population. Proponents of social democracy have identified themselves as promoting the progressive cause.
As you can see, there is scant mention of oppressor or oppressed. Nor does the Encyclopedia Britannica fill the void -- it doesn't even mention the words "class", "oppressor", "oppression", or "oppressed" . In fact, the only mention of class conflict in either Wikipedia or Britannica is when the Wikipedia page mentions that early progressives (around the time of Teddy Roosevelt) believed a "good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace" were sufficient in stemming -- or even circumventing -- class conflict.
Given the above, one could argue that progressivism is equally as compatible with Marxist theory as it is with anti-Marxism. It's even feasible that progressives could outright reject the idea of classes and still retain every aspect of progressivism laid out in this definition.
Am I missing something? Am I not reading Wikipedia or Britannica closely enough?
Are you referring to Ilhan Omar here? (as I see it, her remarks are possible to interpret however the listener pleases. And that includes antisemitism but it also includes anti-what-Omar-sees-as-oppression.)
Okay, but "includes many progressives" is a better phrasing than "includes much of progressivism" ... albeit in a subtle way.
Like, for example I have Muslim friends and Christian friends, and if you said, "the majority of Christian/Muslim ideology is genocidal." I'd scoff because that's obviously untrue.
The majority of Islam, as a religion, as it impacts my Muslim friends' life? They pray several times a day. They fast on particular days on particular months for particular hours.
None of that is Jihad. None of that is what goes on in Iran. That's just plain old boring old riituals.
The same with the Christians I know. They pray. They attend worship gatherings. They read the Bible and try to find wisdom in it that will help them become kinder, more righteous people.
Again, none are pushed toward another Spanish Inquisition by these rituals.
And this is literally coming from an anti-theist. I think religions are inherently harmful to their practitioners on an emotional and psychological level. I think Jihads and Inquisitions and Crusades and American Indian genocides are unusually common when embracing these philosophies.
But even I, an anti-theist, would still be annoyed -- on behalf of those people (whose religion I find deeply problematic) -- if someone said, "the majority of this religious philosophy is about subtly driving people to genocide."
Because that's insulting everything valuable and precious to these people and disregarding everything positive they get from their church.
In other words, phrasing is important.
Carmex lip balm as well.
That's a lot of the reason why Neosporin or any other antibiotic ointments help you heal faster. There's petrolatum in all those products.
But there's the rub. The laws that made terrorism and conspiracy into crimes weren't created to curtail the powerful or their dogs. They were created for the rest of us.
This particular post isn't very... polite toward neurotypical people.
Like you say, there's a key difference between "making a behavior into the default" and "consistently managing to do something."
But I think we can both understand that this is likely to offend the neurotypical folks wandering onto this page. Especially because we're all pretty new to Lemmy (NTs and NDs alike) and I can guarantee you most of us still don't know where to find the "block community" button on the sidebar. Meaning they literally don't know how to avoid this kind of content popping up on their "all" and "local" feeds.
To put this in real-life terms, this lemmit is like an ADHD support group... but there's a young, inexperienced sommelier standing outside on the street offering free pizza and beer to random strangers saying, "come on in! This place is bumping!"
... and then, the neurotypical people he has invited in (along with neurodivergents and everything in between), after sitting down in a circle with the rest of us -- not sure why there's no disco lights or dance music -- proceed to immediately receive complaints about how much easier their life is than ours.
It wouldn't feel great being in their shoes right now.
Thank you. I appreciate the politeness.
We can indeed "get the fuck out of here." But you're going to have to perform a few tasks for us to do that.
- visit this community's homepage: !adhd@lemmy.world
- find the sidebar
- click "block community"
Done. After following these three steps, none of our posts will show up on your "all" feed or on your "local" feed. Then you won't have to see this particular group of people complaining about how hard life is.
I think both the duration and intensity are important. I've seen ADHDers online describing their brief spurts of focus and productivity as the "Hour of Power"
Which is a bit of a misnomer. I know we're all time blind and it feels like fifteen minutes, but that spurt can occasionally go four or five hours.
Alternately, we can have a few slightly productive weeks where everything is easier. I'm undiagnosed, pretty sure I'm ADHD, but I do occasionally have two-week productive cycles. Getting up early, completing tasks, maintaining a routine involving eating, exercising, and showering.
And then when it all comes crashing down, I never do any of those things on time again (or at least until years later, when stress put me in another two-week cycle).
Manic episodes, on the other hand, regularly last over a week at full intensity. From what I hear, the person feels like a god while the episode is going on. They make plans that are downright hubristic, because literally nothing feels insurmountable to them.
Can an ADHD person have two weeks of suddenly being able to maintain routines? Yeah. Sure. Two hours of nothing seeming impossible? Absolutely. But unless the two are combined, it's not a manic episode.
Granted, I'm also straight, white, and male... But there are a hell of a lot of women who support abortion bans AND adore Mr "Grab 'em by the Pussy!"
I know one who doesn't believe God would allow a dangerous, nonviable pregnancy to take hold in (or in the case of ectopic pregnancies, outside of) a woman's uterus. She just doesn't believe something as sacred as a uterus can have that kind of flaw built into it.
And even if you could convince her dangerous pregnancies were real, I think @Ohthereyouare@lem.ee was saying that Republican women would not agree that their ability to survive an ectopic pregnancy is good or worth it if it also helps the "sluts" they despise to have more "convenience abortions."
Surviving might seem pretty good to you and I, but that doesn't make that ability objectively desirable to the people voting against their own interests. And they would be offended if their access to healthcare was deemed "better" in a quality-of-life metric than access to a set of theocratic restrictions.
They would tell you, "well I'm happier. Liberals think they can speak for me just because I'm a woman and my opinion doesn't matter! But if they asked me, I'd tell them I would prefer to live in a place where the sanctity of life was valued! They'd have to censor me and edit me out of their videos because I wouldn't support their narrative!"
Like a lot of people are saying, if reddit comes up in a search result, I'm clicking it. You know that's your best shot at finding the answer you're looking for.
But opening the app? Scrolling and socializing? I checked my comment history just now, and since joining Lemmy on July 1st, I have commented 5 reddit comments; 1 of them was a reply to someone replying to me. 4 of them were specifically about ActivityPub social networks.
In that same thirteen days, I left 33 comments on Lemmy.
You're going to want to head over to
And from the sidebar of each community, you should get a "block community" option. That way it won't show up in your "all" feed.
Personally, I would highly recommend getting some subscriptions going. You get a lot of control over your experience by populating "subscribed" and scrolling that instead of scrolling "all"
As far as I've seen, the name !politics@lemmy.world is a pretty good example of US defaultism. You won't be missing much UK politics by blocking this community.
Would you like help blocking a community?
Steve Bannon might have an audience several orders of magnitude smaller, but he was a significant force in the 2016 election.
Short version? Mix and match the following:
- Pro Xi Jinping
- Pro Joseph Stalin
- Pro Mao
- Pro use of tanks against civilians as in Tiananmen Square in 1989 or Hungary in 1956.
- Pro Vladimir Putin
Basically a tankie is any apologists for government violence against civilians -- usually by claiming something like, "those weren't real civilians. That was a color revolution. The government of [authoritarian regime] responded with no more than the necessary amount of force. Western propaganda is making it look more violent than it was in reality."
From Wikipedia
The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
I'm a little lost myself, so take this with a grain of salt, but....
kbin has more complete microblogging integration. I don't understand what it looks like or feels like, but here on Lemmy, I believe you can only post URLs-to and screenshots-of Mastodon posts. Not the posts themselves.
The ActivityPub protocol underneath Mastodon and Lemmy technically supports that kind of interoperability. That's why Mastodon users can comment on Lemmy posts and on Lemmy comments. But Lemmy has not yet adopted that feature. As far as I know.
kbin has.
As far as I can tell by reading the Redditor's guide to how Kbin works your what/how-to guide over on reddit, it appears that microblogging posts can be made from within kbin.
Which makes kbin a combination twitter/reddit. And it makes Lemmy a "reddit, but twitter users can find our posts and comment on them using their Twitter account in such a way so that they're visible even to us Lemmy users, and boost our comments and posts to their followers."
I will say that the short blackout was enough to get me onto the Fediverse. I didn't even use the apps that would be affected by the API shutdown, so I never would have noticed the controversy without the blackout.
But once the blackout was announced, I recognized how far reddit was willing to go in service of harvesting its users' data. And after that point, I just didn't feel good on the site anymore. (Granted, I first created an account on Mastodon because the people calling for blackouts never mentioned Lemmy. But still!)
Between Facebook's notification system repeatedly failing to direct me to comment replies, Twitter DDoSing itself, and reddit turning into the Eye of Sauron (which, again, I would not have even noticed happening were it not for the short protest), it seemed like the perfect time to exit the sinking ship of corporate social media.
Meaning they did something. Maybe they didn't avert the reddit apocalypse, but they still did something.
I think we all need to watch a full Biden speech every once in a while, just to remind ourselves that he's not the walking dementia case a lot of outlets portray using fifteen second clips of him stumbling on words halfway through a sentence (just like he stumbles on sandbags that are conveniently cropped out of these same videos).