Finland has announced a new arms package for Ukraine amounting to around 200 million euros ($217 million) and pledged more defense cooperation with Kyiv
Mappa geografica dellโEuropa Riguardo le ultime vicende accadute in questi giorni in Europa e altre parti del mondo, urge una breve riflessione ma รจ una riflessione nuda e cruda. 1) Il fatto โฆ
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are feeling the wrath of constituents as their phone lines light up with complaints, worries and confusion over Elon Musk's efforts to gut government programs and fire longtime civil servants.
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo articolo21.org/2025/02/storia-โฆ Dopo Davide Conti e Luciano Canfora denunciati rispettivamente da Isabella Rauti e da Giorgia Meloni, con querele davvero temerarie, entrambe finite in nulla, la destra sceglie di nuovo di intimidire chi fa ricerca storica con competenza e rigore. La memoria storica รจ considerata alla
Canfora รจ stato querelato da Meloni - querela poi ritirata - per averla definita "neonazista nell'animo". La ricerca storica - quella che porta Canfora a considerare l'Euromaidan un colpo di Stato, seguendo la narrazione del fascismo russo - non c'entra granchรฉ.
Same. He saw *gestures broadly* coming and tried to prevent it as best as he could. Whatโs that Greek legend about an oracle whose catastrophic prophecies always come true, but theyโre never believed and always blamed for them?
Bernie is basically a modern day version of Bernstein. Though a century apart, both peddle reformism as a political pacifier, diverting energy from the radical systemic change required to dismantle capitalism. Their approaches, while superficially progressive, function as ideological traps, diverting energy from serious movements necessary to upend capitalism.
Bernstein was a leading figure in Germany's SPD, and he famously rejected Marxist revolutionary praxis in favor of evolutionary socialism. He argued capitalism could be gradually reformed into socialism through parliamentary means, dismissing the inevitability of class conflict. He neutralized the SPD's revolutionary potential, channeling working-class demands into compromises like wage increases or limited welfare programs that left capitalist hierarchies intact. As Rosa Luxemburg warned in Reform or Revolution, Bernstein's strategy reduced socialism to a "mild appendage" of liberalism, sapping the working class of its transformative agency.
Likewise, the political project that Bernie pursued mirrors Bernstein's trajectory. While Sanders critiques inequality and corporate power, his platform centers on social democratic reforms, such as Medicare for All, tuition-free college, a $15 minimum wage, that treat symptoms instead of root causes. By framing electoral victory as the primary objective, Sanders diverted a what could have been a millions strong grassroots movement into the Democratic Party, an institution structurally committed to maintaining capitalism. His campaigns absorbed activist energy into phone banking and voter outreach, rather than building durable, extra-parliamentary power such as workplace organizations, tenant unions, and so on.
When Sanders conceded to Hillary Clinton and later Joe Biden, his base dissolved into disillusionment or shifted focus to lesser-evilism. Without autonomous structures to sustain pressure, the movement's momentum evaporated similarly to how the SPD was integrated into Weimar Germany's capitalist state. However, even if his agenda were enacted, it would exist within a neoliberal framework. Much like FDR's New Deal coexisted with Jim Crow, imperial plunder, and union busting. Reforms within the system are always contingent on their utility to capital, and their purpose is demobilize the workers.
A meaningful challenge to capitalism requires a long-term strategy that combines direct action, mass education, and dual power structures. Imagine if Sanders had urged supporters to unionize workplaces, organize rent strikes, and create community mutual aid networks alongside electoral engagement. Movements like MAS in Bolivia, show how grassroots power can pressure institutions while cultivating revolutionary consciousness. Instead, his campaign became a referendum on his candidacy, leaving his followers adrift after his defeat.
Bernstein and Sanders, despite their intentions, exemplify the dead end of reformism. Their projects mistake tactical concessions for strategic victory, ignoring capitalism's relentless drive to commodify and co-opt. In the end, the reformist approach ends up midwifing full blown fascism. By channeling energy into parliamentary politics, the SPD deprioritized mass mobilization. Unions and workers were encouraged to seek concessions rather than challenge capitalist power structures. This eroded class consciousness and left the working class unprepared to confront the nazi threat.
When the nazis gained momentum, the SPD clung to legalistic strategies, refusing to support strikes or armed resistance against Hitler. Their faith in bourgeois democracy blinded them to the existential threat of fascism, which exploited economic despair and nationalist resentment. In the end, SPD famously allied with the nazis against the communists.
The "progressive" wing of the Democratic Party is following in the footsteps of the SPDโs reformist trajectory. While advocating for policies like Medicare for All or climate action, it operates within capitalist constraints, undermining radical change and inadvertently fueling right-wing extremism. The Democrats absorb grassroots energy into electoral campaigns while their reliance on corporate donors ensures watered-down policies that fuel disillusionment.
The SPD's reformism actively enabled fascism by disorganizing the working class and legitimizing capitalist violence. Similarly, the Democratic Party's commitment to pragmatic incrementalism sustains a system that breeds reactionary backlash. Trump is a direct product of these policies. We're just watching history on repeat here.
Maybe for those who wish to support bombing foreigners while funnelling the military industry into their state.
Motherfucker parades around like he's antiwar because he voted "nay" on a single ballot initiative that was already a shoo-in and inconsequential for him to vote against. Literally a couple months later, he voted to further the funding for those military actions.
Bernie has had blood on his hands for 30-40 years now and continues to try to wash it off with more blood.
Someone who pretends to support the poor at home while simultaneously supporting bombing and invading the poor elsewhere sure is a role model, just not a good one.
Bernie has been pretty shitty on foreign policy. He supported the NATO bombing of Belgrade for 78 straight days, which is why he fell out of favor with his socialist friend, Michael Parenti.
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The right side is just liberalism. This is what happens when the left and liberal are melded together in everyday western society/language and the water is muddied. Itโs intended. It confuses people, overwhelms them, and leads them to use the apparatus that the ruling class has placed in front of us to circumvent true working class interests and movements. Itโs why liberals scoff at potential allies (leftists), instead of seeing the truth: a unified working class.
.ml people will stand by people resisting the imperialism of one country, and then condemn people resisting the imperialism of another, and still won't realize they are effectively nationalists.
Liberals will invent fanfiction about Marxists before genuinely trying to engage with Lenin's analysis of Imperialism or attempt to have a genuine conversation about it.
Even in Stalinโs time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
A lot of the cold war propaganda about the USSR turned out to be bullshit, as contemporary Western academic historians will tell you, including Domenico Losurdo.
Karl Marx died an anarchist.
This is laughably false by simply reading what Marx actually wrote.
Even if it were true that Marx threw out his entire lifeโs work and became an anarchist on his deathbed, how did the Paris Commune turn out? Why has no anarchist society lasted more than a few months before collapsing from within, or from without by capitalist/imperialist forces? Anarchism has not and can not succeed in the world we presently live in, if for no other reason than they cannot defend themselves against the imperialist forces of the monopoly capitalists who want to profit from everything everywhere.
But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this โpure socialismโ view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.
The pure socialistsโ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they โfeel betrayedโ by this or that revolution.
Even in Stalinโs time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
Davel, you do know that this is not a statement by the CIA, but a comment collected from an undisclosed USSR informant? If we take these unevaluated comment reports as what the CIA thought, they would have changed their mind some time later.
Stalin was a fanatic, an all-powerful dictator with a persecution complex and a mania for greatness. He wanted to see his goals accomplished during his life- time. If he were still alive, the Soviet Union would be either on the brink of or in the midst of a catastrophe. It is hoped that the present authorities will permit their pursuit of their aims to be tempered by reason, and a recognition of the realities of life. They are normal people, not sick, and see that resistance to change must be considered. As Bukharin and Rykov proposed, many of the changes made by the Soviets can be retained; the others can be abandoned gradually, It is important to make concessions to the peasantry, and the authorities appear to have chosen that road. Malenkov's speech of 8 August 1953 is regarded as a change from an unreasonable to a reasonable policy, Freedom, of course, is the most important thing and the regime can scarcely grant that and retain power. The disappointment to those who regard Malenkov's speech as the beginning of a new era will be terrifying and may have consequences.
I think that report wasnโt an honest assessment but rather the cold war talking points to be used for cold war propaganda. The CIA is as much in the job of disinformation as it is in information. Contemporary Western academic historians, having access to declassified US & USSR documents from the time, have published accounts that put these cold war cartoon villain narratives to bed.
My country has been Gladioded, no need to convince me that they're manipulative fucks ๐ My issue isn't about which is closer to the truth, but about using these documents as a proof, as the CIA admitting this or that. I've seen many otherwise well informed MLs frame it that way, and it's a bad look since it make them appear as willingly obtuse or disingenuous. Both the quoted documents are just collected intelligence, and certainly not from an internal source from the politburo which, by the CIA's own admission, they weren't able to infiltrate. And you said it yourself, there's many historians that did their job well; quoting them instead of some unverified crap would be more convincing.
Edit:
By the way, while looking at my notes on the topic, I found something I saved from "Titoism and Soviet Communism". Given the nature of this document, an analysis for "those who need to know", it's actually closer to a statement about what they thought of the USSR under Stalin at the time.
About "Stalinism" (their word, not mine):
This term is used to denote the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin as dogmatically interpreted by Stalin, and as imposed by him on the International Communist Movement. The term denotes in particular the theory and practice connected with Stalin's personal dictatorship -- "one man rule" -- over the CPSU, the Soviet State, and -- under the guise of "the leading role" of the CPSU -- over the International Communist Movement as a whole.
This is a book from written by Professor Grover Furr that goes through and Thoroughly debunks all of the Anti-Communist Myths and Accusations that were made in...
No, lol. Marx wanted a fully publicly owned and planned economy free of class antagonisms, Anarchists want decentralized networks of communes. These are very different systems with very different analysis.
Socialism in One Country is correct, Trotsky wanted to abandon building Socialism essentially and just keep trying to do revolutions elsewhere. The correct path is to not abandon building Socialism, while still supporting Socialist movements elsewhere.
You have to be together to be divided. I don't consider the people that have caused or enabled all of the suffering in the US to be united with the working class, personally.
I think unity can only be achieved through a genuine alliance in values and methods. Liberals, fundamentally, disagree on what the prime issue is and how to fix it. Marxists and Anarchists, despite having different goals and methods, are at least aligned in opposition to Capitalism and Imperialism and can work together. Liberals support Capitalism and therefore, intentionally or not, support its Imperialism, so any feigned resistance towards the atrocities of the US Empire rings hollow coming from Liberals.
I don't know what you mean by "pure," nor what value that would have. If Leftists seek to establish some form of Socialism, and Liberals wish to perpetuate and maybe tweak the current system just a bit, then these people are never going to be able to meaningfully work together. "Purity" has nothing to do with it, and never has.
Can you elaborate in any way? I thought I gave a fairly well-thought out response to why division exists between Leftists and Liberals in the first place, and you responded with vague character assassinations. I don't know what to make of this, really, it just seems silly.
Unity means Vote Blue no Matter Who, unless theyโre to the left of the center-right, in which case we spare no expense or moral compunction to primary the fuck out of them.
My dear fellow user, there is no need to be so defensive. No one is going to kill you or shame you because you express your views. I and many others here may even be convinced by you. Your opinion does matter, and so does you, so, there is no need to disregard someone open to discussion just because you diverge in something. If you don't want to discuss on something, there is always the option to not give these quick-witted responses, saying few words and assuming positions from "the enemy" that the person has never said. No one here is your "enemy".
If you really think u/Cowbee is wrong, and wish for other people to understand you, articulate your answers. Say in a comprehensible way WHY he is wrong, instead of making arguments like "oh yes because my opinion is shit and you are the only pure socialist" or some ironic weak shit like that. We are (mostly) all adults, there is no need to engage in childish behavior, and you should not expect that we will understand what you mean by saying "his definition is wrong" without saying what "definition".
If you really think that there is no convincing anyone here, because we are all hopeless mfs or smth, just stop arguing and save yourself the time and sanity.
I think that condescending users who only care to label and deride aren't worth talking to, so I finally blocked that guy. It's unfortunate that his attitude is so common.
what attitude? cowbee has been nothing but polite in every reply to you. and what do you mean by label and deride? it's as though you're replying to the wrong comments because none of this makes any sense.
The post's existence is what I'm talking about; that user spends their life hating "liberals" and assigning that label to people they've exchanged a sentence with. I'm done here, you can stop responding now.
Funny you put quotes on the word liberal. You know words have meanings and definitions right? I know many people don't bother to check a term's meaning and end up miss using it, but that does not detract from the fact that the word still has meaning.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.
Note that liberalism defends the right to private property (AKA Capitalism). (Also, private property and personal property are two different things.)
I never once tried to engage them in the way they wanted. I've been really close to blocking them (finally did) several times because fuck tankies. Yes there I said it, I used a label. Because that's all I was afforded. Y'all don't need to get so butthurt about being self righteous. The fact that you are is telling.
I got blocked for asking what you mean? I just wanted to hear what you were genuinely trying to ask about, but guess that doesn't matter anymore because you can't read this.
Exactly! Marxists, anarchists, and leninists are alllies. Statist liberals on the other hand, whether they be social democratic corporate capitalists or stalinistic state capitalists, will always try to infiltrate and divide the communist movement.
It's just like this motte-and-bailey meme. The implied position is that the communists were wrong to tell the Americans to vote against fascism. The strong position, which is claimed to be the only position when it meets resistance, is that it's only against capitalist liberals.
Yes, itโs hard for them to understand because of a lifetime of anti-socialist & pro-capitalist propaganda, propaganda which most of them arenโt even aware of, because for them itโs just common sense.
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist, one of the founders and leaders of the Italian Communist Party. In 1926, he was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's fascist...
Capitalism is so all-consuming it's like water to fish. "Capitalism" becomes synonymous with words like economy, markets, trade, laws, and government. It no longer is an ideology, but an immutable force in the universe.
I'll say it again, in the United States the term "liberal" is used to refer to liberal social ideas NOT liberal economic ideas. To the average US citizen left and liberal are synonyms. This doesn't mean your definition isn't correct for academics and the entire rest of the world. But this meme, and this left vs liberal argument for this post, are US based.
We know that, which is why weโre trying to deprogram Americans from the Orwellian newspeak theyโve been mistaught so they can develop class consciousness.
I'm not sure how colloquial vocabulary usage prevents developing class consciousness. I'd potentially argue refusing to accept the evolution of language and refusing to communicate to people in the terms they use and understand inhibits said deprogramming. Again very US centric in this definition but it's who needs deprogramming.
Sometimes the evolution of language isnโt so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Americans believe Sanders when he calls himself a socialist because theyโve lost a vocabulary for socialism itself. And they think Sandersโ centrism is โthe left,โ because the Overton window has shifted so far right that there is no left left.
We canโt simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
Sometimes the evolution of language isnโt so much organic as it is a political project, such as a century of red scares and socialist purges.
Ok. But regardless of the cause, organic or political project, it doesn't change the fact that the language has moved on correct?
We canโt simply use their terms, because their terminology is both muddled and lacking.
But there's the rub. You/we ARE using their terms and the message is muddled and lacking BECAUSE OF the difference in perceived definitions. And as the past couple decades have shown there is zero chance of getting the American people to learn things, or unlearn as the case may be.
I assume very few people this far down a thread into a political discussion, on Lemmy, don't know what the Overton windowS are and how fucked the US is because of the current far right position on the left/right scales. I find it lacking and dislike it's libertarian origins. We are even now discussing the difference of a word being used for social vs economic ideas and these two scales do not necessarily overlap.
~~What? That's literally the opposite of what I'm saying... I'm saying words can have multiple meanings depending on context. But the point of this was how does "liberal" having a different colloquial definition from how op was using it have anything do with "developing class consciousness" which can be done regardless of this single word?~~
But anyway liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. The artificial differences created between conservatives and progressists is just a smoke screen to create a false debate and prevent from challenging capitalism, switching the enemy from the rulling capitalist class to the person next door with different views
This is also wrong. US liberals are just as anticommunist as their further right counterparts, and their "social liberalism" goes only so far as not to infringe on capitalist "freedom" to do whatever they can get away with. Hence their hatred of homeless / the poor, communists, and colonized peoples.
As the saying goes, US liberals are against every genocide except the current one. Hence their staunch support for Israel's genocide of Palestinians.
Just realized were in .ml my guy. These guys have thrown the brick on trapos crazy koolaid jammer and only want to circlejerk about liberals and their infallible god kings stalin and marx
based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
Okay buddy. You guys just want to twist a good ideology into a wedge issue. The only thing vaguely "capitalist" about a liberal is the belief that the government isnt allowed to seize your shit unlawfully. The right to own property comes way after personal liberty in my book. That means billionaires dont get a pass for abusing the populace.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property and equality before the law.
Personal property is property owned by a person for their own use, i.e. their possessions. Examples include one's toothbrush, car, phone etc. This is not to be confused...
That line says nothing about capitalism. Pro ownership? That is a tenet of some branches of leftism. I dont agree with corporations or the state having a monopoly on land ownership. Though the government cant come and take an individuals shit for no reason. Being an abusive billionaire though has an asterisk in the foot notes.
Though I'd argue that anyone owning shit comes a large and wide second or 3rd to human rights.
philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed
No, itโs anti-pinkwashing. Itโs anti-liberals failing to protect the vulnerable yet again. What have we gained since the pussyhat movement but the loss of reproductive rights under Bidenโs watch?
Officially named Pussyhats, they were first worn symbolically at the 2017 US Women's March in Washington DC. Created by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman (who met at an LA knitting club), the hat was made in direct response to grab em by the pussy remark from tdump. The original idea was for marchers to knit, sew, or crochet hats to create a visual statement โa sea of pink. "If everyone at the march wears a pink hat, the crowd will be a sea of pink, showing that we stand together, united," reads the introduction to the knitting pattern on the Pussyhat Project website. The actual hats were created by people who could not attend physically, but wanted to show their support.
Since then, some have come out against it as any one symbol isn't as all encompassing as they would like, but none have yet given or inspired a good replacement for such a strong show of women's solidarity.
I'm really struggling to find a party that i fully agree with.
For one, i like true leftist ideals, but i don't like guns, so i guess the left parts of the image doesn't apply to me.
On the other side, i think the long-standing support for Ukraine is an atrocious mistake, because it prolongs the suffering unnecessarily (after all, the uproar in Ukraine is mostly an CIA-inspired action after all i believe, and diplomatic solutions were not sought). But shitting on that pink hat (which is clearly a symbol for queer/trans people) is just unacceptable. just leave the people live their own private life as they want. What's so difficult about that?
Edit: as per the comments, i stand corrected and am sorry for my half-assed take. i'll leave it up anyways, because i guess it's a chance to learn for any reader.
its time to read theory. you are currently at the utopian anarchist stage. which is a step in a better direction, but ultimately irrational.
you need to better understand that the people in the image [conveniently] on the left incorporated violence because they lived under the constant threat of deadly violence. 99% of the violence was directed at them. Fred Hampton was executed by the police not long after that picture of him was taken.
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States. Our home is in the working class.
Do you really need to read volumes of theory to grasp what is fundamentally a rather straightforward concept?
Leftism shouldnโt be locked behind intellectual elitism.
TL;DR the capitalist state will use threats of violence/actual violence against threats to capitalism which includes those who stand for progressive ideals. Leftists believe this is a justification to use violence against the state.
There's merit to your question. Ultimately, as someone who largely hadn't taken theory seriously until the last couple of years, I think theory is not only useful, but necessary. There are good comrades who do good work without theory, I don't want to discredit that. However, theory has had a profound impact on my understanding of history, tactics, and life itself. Theory is important because our predecessors have given their lives discovering and handing down the lessons they've learned.
From Marx, who dedicated his entire life to discovering the mechanisms of Capitalism to give the Proletariat the tools to surpass it, to Lenin, who analyzed Capitalism's monstrous evolution to Imperialism, to Gramsci who spent the later years of his life rotting in prison and reflecting on Marxian teachings, to Politzer who stood against the Nazis and taught Parisan workers Dialectical and Historical Materialism before being captured and executed for his Jewish heritage and Communist alliance, to modern theoreticians such as Losurdo, Parenti, and the many Communists who dedicated their lives to the working class. Revolutionaries like Mao, Fidel, Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, and more all have unique lessons to tell from their experiences in their existence. People like Mao, Deng, Xi, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and more have helped build and design the largest economy in the world. What can we learn from them? What should we copy, what should change?
We owe it to them to learn from the lessons they dedicated their lives to teaching us. We have a duty to humanity to move beyond the wretched system of Capitalism before the planet is destroyed by Climate Change for the pursuit of profit. We owe it to our predecessors to continue the work they started. We owe it to our successors to use the best tools we can to make their struggles easier. We owe it to ourselves, so that we have a future.
Theory is a tool. If you don't take every advantage you can against the most heartless, greedy, brutal Empire in history, do you really care at all? If you refuse to truly learn your enemy, in all its complicated facets of expropriation, or learn the successful tactics and strategies for overcoming them, or learn from the missteps of our predecessors or the correct actions they've taken, we will not have a decisive victory.
Not volumes. As you say, a little can go a long way. But rather than relearn the lessons of history from first principles, engaging with writings from people who have already seriously grappled with these things is the only efficient way to wrap oneโs mind around many different major factors working simultaneously in the material world.
But shitting on that pink hat (which is clearly a symbol for queer/trans people) is just unacceptable
That isn't what that is a symbol for at all. It was a knit hat made for an ineffective Trump protest in 2017. Actually queer and trans people found the hats exclusionary. So did non white people whose genitalia aren't that color. The entire pussy-hat movement was feel-good liberal activity that accomplished nothing and made no difference. Much like the liberal "support" for Ukraine.
but i donโt like guns
This is extreme privilege. None of us like guns just to like guns. Brother Malcolm was being threatened with his life daily and his home was firebombed then he was assassinated, he was trying to protect himself. Fred Hampton was literally murdered by the police. The Zapatistas and Palestinians don't resort to violence because they "like it" either, they are targets of the state that act with violence on them and both have learned that civil disobedience has its limits. Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists that were executed by the state after being framed and falsely accused of a bombing, armed robbery and murder which the state of Massachusetts apologized for in 1977.
this is laughably utopian and ahistorical, i'm sorry but this is fantasy. There's a reason that the "violent" and "authoritarian" communists have actually won and seized power while the utopian eurocommies have never accomplished a single thing.
Your nation has never successfully had a revolution. They need to be listening and learning from those that have, following their example, and not trying to invent their own perfect (white) system from whole cloth
Thereโs a reason that the โviolentโ and โauthoritarianโ communists have actually won and seized power while the utopian eurocommies have never accomplished a single thing.
Well yeah i can tell you what the communists have achieved in the Sovjet Union, and that's 20 million people dead due to stalinistic terror. So much for "winning". No thank you.
Meanwhile, lots of european economies (and people!) have been doing well since after the second world war. Maybe they have accomplished something.
Life expectancy over doubled from the 30s to the 70s in the USSR. Literacy rates went from the 20s and 30s to 99.9%, above Western European and USian rates. Famine was ended by collectivization and industrialization in a country where famine was common under the Tsar. This same nation, barely industrializing at the start of the 20th century, beat the United States into space, and continued beating it with the first man and first woman in space.
Social Safety Nets expanded greatly. Healthcare and Education were free and high quality. Housing was incredibly affordable, and there was full employment. Abortion was not only legalized, but free. Women played a role even in the highest ranks of politics. The economy was democratized. 80% of the combat in World War 2 was on the Eastern Front, the Soviets defeated the Nazis.
Sadly, there were excess deaths, but 20 million people did not die, such a number comes from anti-communist myth-makers before the opening of the Soviet Archives. The numbers given by the Black Book of Communism include Nazis killed during World War 2, and use various other misdirections to grossly inflate the number of excess deaths. Were there excess deaths? Sadly, yes, and nobody denies this. However, when compared to contemporary peers like the British Empire who intentionally starved millions of Bengalis, the French who were colonizing Vietnam, Algeria, and more, or the United States who killed millions of Iraqis, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and more, the USSR played a far more progressive role. From supporting Palestinian resistance against genocide, to helping China throw off their colonizers, to helping Algeria throw off the French, to helping Vietnam against the US Empire and French Colonialists, the Soviets played a far better role.
Wealth inequality went far down, whike GDP growth was constantly positive except during World War 2. It was one of the most rapidly growing economies in the 20th century.
Western Europe (and of course the US to a greater degree), to this day, relies on brutal expropriation of the Global South through outsourcing industry and brutal IMF loans. They have been doing well because they are Imperialists. To say they are doing well is to say the Trust Fund kid working at his father's investment firm is doing well, he does so on the backs of actual laborers and did not earn his vast wealth, but inhereted it from former and current Empire.
well i guess it's good for you to spit these facts but i gotta make my own judgement, and i can see the things around me, and saying "They have been doing well because they are Imperialists. To say they are doing well is to say the Trust Fund kid working at his fatherโs investment firm is doing well, he does so on the backs of actual laborers and did not earn his vast wealth, but inhereted it from former and current Empire." does not make me believe your point, just fyi
Colonization and now Imperialism have been the driving forces of Western European Economies for centuries. All of this sheer expropriation of wealth hasn't gone away in any capacity, the IMF still debt traps countries in Africa, Latin America, and other areas in the Global South. Especially during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, countries like Britain, Germany, and France had industrialized to the point of monopolization, and a blending of financial and industrial Capital. This turned towards the Global South, seeking to export Capital to super-exploit for super-profits.
If you want to read about the origins of this system, the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is quite a quick read, written in the early 20th century (though it mentions many entities that exist today in the same forms, like Deutsche Bank). For modern analysis, Super-Imperialism by Hudson, though it is US based Western European Imperialism is intricately tied to US Imperialism.
"Take the Blue Pill and the gradual slide into fascism stops accelerating for four years while the current hellscape becomes the status quo, take the Red Pill and buckle the fuck up as we hyperspeed into fascism"
It is a kayfabe democracy. It has only oligarchical management, not democratic representation. No matter who wins the elections the policies are predetermined. Rooting for Kamala over Trump is no different than rooting for The Undertaker in Wrestlemania.
It was, yeah. The US was going to implode and decline no matter which person was appointed by your oligarchy. You didn't vote for any of the corporate board members who control your society and government in November. You also didn't actually have a choice, in kayfabe democracy the results are predetermined, much like all the elections in authoritarian carceral states.
No, I strongly disagree that Harris would have all DEI removed, all black history everything paused for the military, etc. Harris was not going to push for more tax breaks for the ultra rich. The project 2025 agenda was not going to be pursued under Harris. You may not approve of the Harris agenda, but they are not remotely comparable except through an absolutist all or nothing lens. Claiming they are the same is absurd.
You are not understanding what I am saying. You do not live in a democracy. Harris had no chance of winning because your elections are fake. That is what I mean by results are predetermined, just like Wrestlemania. The US oligarchs fixed the elections during redistricting years before the election took place. During the ridiculous run up to the event nothing you did mattered. You live in a authoritarian oligarchy.
Those who didnโt vote, or voted third party, due to the pointless war in the middle east that involved war crimes just like every war I can think of since the Geneva Convention became a thing, that President Biden funded, did so in safe states that VP Harris won.
The makeup of the United States means that Republicans have an advantage in the Senate and therefore also the Electoral College.
Republicans gerrymander, Democrats half-heartedly gerrymander, since that is against the ideology of liberalism. This gives Republicans an edge in the House of Representatives as well.
The Republican advantage in the Senate is so great that the only way for Democrats to get a majority is to include neoliberal or conservative senators like Manchin, meaning progress is continuously stifled.
The Republicans are allowed to get away with stretching the rules, while the Democrats have to follow the rules at all times. Part of this, again, is due to adhering to liberal ideology, and part of it is due to the ruling class favoring Republicans. There has been a conservative majority in the Supreme Court since the 1980s. Democrats are controlled opposition, in that no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to enact meaningful change.
An actual left-wing candidate would not be liberal, as is the point of this post. Therefore, they would have no chance of winning the Democratic primary. That would force them to run as an independent or in a third party, and our system makes it almost impossible for a third party candidate to win, at least at the national level.
Yes, it is better to vote for a Democrat than a Republican, but it is much better to build grassroots support for leftism, which, shocker, is what leftists have been trying to do in the US for centuries. If anything, the leftists are doing the most to fight fascism, by trying to get rid of the US system of government that is biased towards the status quo, which by definition benefits the ruling class.
As well as the fact that Elon Musk and Trump have said in no-uncertain terms that they helped fix the election in Pennsylvania as well as the fact that Trump has a history of trying to illegally alter the election results, I think assuming that he necessarily won the vote against Harris isnโt a good base assumption to make in the first place. And thatโs not even including the early vote box that was found in the road and the fascist goons who attacked ballot boxes. Even if he didnโt commit election fraud, your points are still completely valid but I think we shouldnโt assume that he was genuinely voted for in the first place.
Yeah, I didnโt even touch Pennsylvania. If you ignore Pennsylvania (specifically PA-7 and PA-8 which are the most likely candidates for election shenanigans) and the one seat Republicans gained due to gerrymandering (technically three: NC-6, NC-13, NC-14, but Republicans actually had to remove gerrymandering leading to Democrat wins in LA-6 and AL-2), Democrats would have taken the House. This is why the Supreme Court ended up voting against Independent State Legislature, as it would have benefited the Democrats due to ending the independent redistricting committees in states like California.
EDIT: I honestly think Republicans thought the race would be closer than it was, so they messed with suburban Philadelphia specifically since Pennsylvania was key to their strategy. This is mostly due to polling errors in PA-7 and PA-8 that underestimated the Republican by eight points, along with comments by Musk and Trump.
In Luzerne County, one of two eastern Pennsylvania counties where Republicans overtook Democrats in active voter registration earlier this year, poll workers failed to set up shop on time.
Polls were supposed to open at 7 a.m., but in Luzerne County, wokers (sic, lmao) at a precinct in Laflin Borough were unable to access a scanner due to an issue with the lock. By about 8:40 a.m., several machines were up and running.
They didnโt say this, but Laflin Borough is part of PA-8.
The problem with Solarpunk is that it isn't really grounded in theory, it's a vibe and an aesthetic, a hope for a better future but without any real binding ideology. It's easy to transform, like cottagecore being weaponized into upholding traditional gender roles.
Solar will absolutely be a huge part of the future, but getting there requires taking supremacy over Capital to go against the car and oil industries. This requires Socialism.
The term "tankie" was originally used by dissident MarxistโLeninists 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 defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
The term was literally created by Marxists to insult the kind of person who wants to use tanks to suppress a worker's revolution. Tankies aren't communists. They're counterrevolutionaries who want to stop all progress made towards dissolving the state as Marx said.
We demand general elections by universal, secret ballot are held throughout the country to elect a new National Assembly, with all political parties participating. We demand that the right of workers to strike be recognised.
We demand complete revision of the norms operating in industry and an immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just requirements of workers and intellectuals. We demand a minimum living wage for workers.
So you're saying the revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to strike wasn't a worker's revolution? Are all tankies this right-wing or just you?
One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action.
- Lenin, 1922
It probably means they read Lenin and liked his ideas a lot better than Stalin's nonsense. Now, you were explaining how tankies oppose minimum wage and the right to strike?
To be clear, drag is calling Nazis and Nazi sympathizers "the advanced working class." Trying to twist Lenin into supporting fascism is incorrect, to say the least.
Moreover, Stalin was dead before 1956, this was Khrushchev.
drag asked for sources, was that just to waste my time? Read them. Here's another few excerpts:
Section from the book โThe Truth about Hungaryโ by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940โs, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press:
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. โThere is no longer any room for doubt,โ said the Yugoslav reporter, โit is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,โ continued this writer, "coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways."
"But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing."
"Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements' ...." (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
"The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary."
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: โDown with Jew Gero!โ โDown with Jew Rakosi!โ or just simply โdown with the Jews!โ
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that โJewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.โ Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that โanti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.โ This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because โfascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.โ Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that โthe majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.โ The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
drag does realize that the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries were working with literal Nazis, and were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, right? They were lynching people, and even freed Nazis from jail to help with the lynching. The "political parties" they wanted to be able to participate were not worker parties, but fascist ones.
This is genuinely what liberals often accuse "tankies" of doing: uncritically supporting movements based on nominally being progressive, despite in reality being highly reactionary. Further, Hungary wanted to get out of paying reparations for World War II, that was one of the biggest cruxes of the situation. Who did Hungary fight alongside in WWII, does drag remember?
Overall, when it comes to geopolitical enemies of the United States in particular, it would not be a bad idea to treat drag's current understanding with extreme skepticism until drag has investigated counter-sources as well. That doesn't mean the US always lies, in fact it frequently tells mostly the truth, but will distory either the quality or quantity of an event.
If they were capitalists, why didn't the demands of the student protesters say anything about capitalism? If the USSR allowed workers the right to strike, why were the students demanding it?
Read the sources drag asked for. What this was was a bourgeois supported counter-revolution that armed fascists that were doing pograms. The legitimacy of the demands immediately comes into question when drag understands that these were Nazi sympathizers. They wanted to allow fascist and Capitalist parties to dominate Hungary and wanted to get out of paying reparations for the damage they did as Nazis during World War II.
As for striking, it happened sometimes in the Soviet Union. Worker rights were much better there than in Western countries so it wasn't as common.
What the hell you talking about? These are all revolutionary heroes acting in self defense and promoting solidarity.
Calling Fanon a tankie is the most ridiculous thing I've read today. Try reading a book for once in your life. He talks about how violence psychologically harms the revolutionary more than it does the people they attack.
Malcolm X was protecting himself after being firebombed here.
Fred Hampton was a socialist and preached cross racial solidarity and black power as a way of elevating black people into solidarity.
The Zapatistas are indigenous heroes who are resisting oppression of the state, who prefer civil disobedience but will act to protect themselves.
Sacco and Vanzetti were organizing a general strike and were framed then murdered by the state
Leila Khalid was separated from her family at 15 during the Palestinian expulsion and resisting Israeli occupation
Where the hell are the tankies in this pic? What are you people even talking about
Drag didn't accuse anyone in the picture of being a tankie. Drag thought the image was relevant to the discussion. As you can see in this thread, users of this community are defending the use of tanks to suppress the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Drag thought that tankies might like to comment on your meme, and called them tankies. And as everyone can see, drag was right.
drag is defending a fascist counter-revolution, and refused to read sources after asking for them. drag wasn't right about anything. You are defending people that lynched and massacred Jewish people and Communists.
Section from the book โThe Truth about Hungaryโ by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940โs, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press:
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. โThere is no longer any room for doubt,โ said the Yugoslav reporter, โit is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,โ continued this writer, "coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways."
"But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing."
"Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements' ...." (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
"The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary."
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: โDown with Jew Gero!โ โDown with Jew Rakosi!โ or just simply โdown with the Jews!โ
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that โJewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.โ Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that โanti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.โ This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because โfascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.โ Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that โthe majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.โ The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
Drop the act. I'm blocking you now, Maybe you can get people to defend your moronic third person shit but I can see your ridiculous trolling for what it is. How dare you make a mockery of people who genuinely need to come to terms with their identities.
The "left" is way too broad of a grouping today. The classic political compass is 2D with left-right referring to economic and up-down (authoritarian-libertarian) to social policy. And even that is oversimplifying it, many saying it should be 3D. Grouping everyone into either A or B is I guess what humans do when their understanding of a topic is too narrow.
I find this especially funny with Trump's tariffs. You know, the mechanism with which you control the market... closing it... like leftist economic policy does. Trump is a leftist now? Any more tariffs and he'll be a complete communist! Dismantle more government and he'll be an anarchist! It just completely falls apart.
This is supposed to be a tetrahedron, but I suck at drawing 3D shapes. Just imagine that anarchism is the top of the tetrahedron and that the triangle is the base.
EDIT: Also, yellow is liberalism, if you canโt read it
EDIT 2: I have no qualm with down-voting, but I would prefer a comment explaining what parts specifically you did not like, so I know how to not make the same mistake in the future.
EDIT 2: I have no qualm with down-voting, but I would prefer a comment explaining what parts specifically you did not like, so I know how to not make the same mistake in the future.
Political compasses are silly and pointless brainrot. Yes, this includes trying to make new and better galaxy brain political compasses. It especially includes that. "Meritocracy" lol.
I'll offer an explanation, I think it would be helpful.
First, mapping complex political beliefs on ill-defined and vague lines adds more confusion than it clarifies. What is authoritarianism? What is meritocracy? We have a general idea, but these aren't useful for measuring ideologies.
Second, making it 3D makes little sense. Why is Liberalism in the "meritocracy" column, when one of the most widely agreed countries to focus on an idea of meritocracy, China, is a Socialist Market Economy? Why is liberalism distinct from conservativism enough to be an entirely separate leg?
All in all, it's nice to think about how to view ideologies, but we should view them as they are, and not on some map that doesn't exist. For example, why is a fully publicly owned, democratic society considered more "authoritarian" than society decided by the whims of few Capitalists competing like warlords?
While this is somewhat true, in all of the west there are only 3 groups currently : liberals, fascists and leftists.
Liberals are a diverse group, ranging from socio-democrat and liberal green parties to libertarian who leans on fascism.
Fascists are all the brands of conservatives who leverage racism, authoritarianism and nationalism.
Leftists are basically the groups opposed to both fascism and liberalism.
Those are 3 objective groups. They are the groups that determine how likely they will cooperate or oppose each other, or how elections will turn.
Some parties will be a bit in between, but that's merely political communication. In practice a group that promote itself as a middle group is actually leaning right. This means that "leftist liberals" (who range from some green parties and movements to the socio-democrats) will always pick liberals if they must choose between them and the left. Likewise, conservatives and libertariens are leaning toward fascism when given the choice.
The political spectrum is radicalised and triparted. You can deny this model and blur the information, but it usually means that you are leaning more to the right than you are pretending.
The leftist revolutionary heroes are resisting the people on the right, it is a hard split. The people on the right are shepherds of the US carceral state and imperial murderers
Ranked Choice Voting is both too ineffective to make any change, and too difficult to get in the first place. It's the perfect endless carrot on a string, the eternal "just one more lane and traffic will be gone."
Even if that's so, you'd still need to vote for the people on the right, because voting third party in first past the post is objectively just terrible for everyone with similar goals.
Alternative voting methods have proven useless against capitalist power. Countries like Australia and Japan use them, and it does nothing. It might make candidate stacking a little more expensive, and they have to pay more to advertise their candidates, but that's it.
Alternative voting methods allow for smaller parties, ones who's values may align more with the general population, an actual fighting chance. You gotta admit at some point that having only two realistic choices is a bit of a problem, right?
It seems like it should help, but in practice, its been useless. You end up having a greater diversity of candidates and parties, but if capital still stands above the political system and controls it, it just means more capitalist puppets, and more advertising money required to get those preferred puppets elected.
Multi-party Bourgeois parliamentarism is not really any different from the ancient roman imperial senate. Its government by oligarchy / the wealthy entrenched class.
In current Polish sejm there is 17 parties and 42 indpendents (on 460 seats). But every single one of them is procapitalist, proimperialist, pro USA, anticommunist. Alternative voting methods do literally nothing by itself.
Last time I checked, that's not how that works, everyone has a wide range of ideals and views. Not 1 or 2, there can be 1 1/2, 1 1/3, 1 1/10000, whatever
Unless you're gay, lesbian, trans, atheist, Muslim, Jewish, Satanist, black, brown, female, an immigrant, or really anything other than a straight white Christian man.
What an incredibly privileged take. Try having some empathy for other people sometime.
Well, except you are wrong. Biden reversed Trumpโs decision to pull out of Somalia. You are just being fed right wing propaganda to make one of the groups seem better than the other.
of course. let's have some respect for the american minorities while minorities abroad can be tortured in some basement in a third world shithole while being watched over by a cia agent.
and i get to be called privileged by some oversized gringo. oh the imperialist exceptionalism.
No way you're unironically pulling out the identity politics when just about every single revolutionary party in the US' history was led by minorities. We are the first to feel the brunt of capitalism and for that reason we are the ones to lead the charge against it while the privileged sit in their condos waiting for everything to blow over so they can say "Oh I actually supported civil rights this whole time ๐"
And also, the US bombs all the groups above you just mentioned without distinction. The Obama administration for example dropped an average of 80 bombs every day of his presidency on the middle east and north africa.
For trans people in the U.S., the difference between a GOP win and a Dem win in the house, senate, and presidential elections is the difference between having or not having certain rights.
Federal prisons now will force trans women to be transferred to male prisons and they will be denied gender-affirming care like access to estrogen.
If you are a trans person in the U.S. there is a clear difference between the Dems and the GOP - one is clearly better than the other.
Nothing in response has responded to this, shown it to be false, etc.
It does not require that we overlook that the Dems have far-right policies, especially on immigration and international affairs. It does not require we defend U.S. imperialism to say the Dems are better than the GOP for trans people in the U.S. Both are true.
I understand the moral disgust and the impulse to see how villainous the Dems are, I feel the same way, but if you care about the political outcomes, you can't ignore that there remain significant and tangible differences between the parties and their policies.
Rights are proclaimed and fought for by the marginalized, not gracefully given by our rulers. If you put so much emphasis on which group of tyrants to vote for, youโll never think โmaybe I should become a Stormรฉ DeLarverie and actually make a differenceโ
All he did was save capitalism which inevitably led to what the US has today. There is no future for humanity with oligarchs like him and his family despite their supposed good intentions
He did a lot more than "save capitalism". Social Security, the Citizens Conservation Corpse, and the full blown WW2-era command economy (complete with ration cards and production quotas and public housing for all the rapidly mobilized industrial workers) had far more in common with Stalinism than Coolidge's laisse-faire market economy. Hell, FDR even had his share of gulags, when you consider how Japanese Internment Camps were created and administered.
There is no future for humanity with oligarchs like him and his family
There's a sharp line between an oversized land baron clutching a fist full of stock certificates and a popular elected bureaucrat charged with administering the public labor force.
Oligarchy can't just be "guy with rich parents" or it quickly descends into austerity fetishism. Oligarchy is fundamentally anti-populist. It requires a strong centralized police force to compel a broad, disorganized public into acting against their own material interests. FDR's New Deal was a meaningful shift away from oligarchy precisely because he adopted policies from his left-leaning proletarian base in defiance of the Depression-Era economic elites. And he implemented them with the enthusiastic support of the body public. Nobody was getting held up at gunpoint to take a salary from the Parks' Department or to pile into Keynesian school house construction programs or to patch up wounded soldiers at the VA.
FDR's personal wealth gave him a platform upon which to propagandize left-liberal policies on a national stage. But his messages resonated because they had a popular basis not because he simply hammered people with Madison Avenue propaganda.
You seem to be arguing that FDR was a leftist because of the policies he implemented. But I think what you are missing is why he implemented those policies. I think the truth is he didn't really have the public interest at heart. His agenda was to contain a growing threat to capitalism in the form of the Communist Party of the 1930s. His strategy to contain the CP was to neuter the party by bringing it into the Democratic party fold, alienating their most militant members, and slowly squashing their agenda. Of course he had to appeal to their interests to do so. But it was a temporary strategy, not a real shift in US policy. There are a few articles on the topic if you are genuinely interested. Here's one. And here's a quote from another.
The New Deal reforms Sanders evokes were not the product of a farsighted, enlightened reformer, but responses to tumultuous class struggles in the early and mid-1930s. These reforms sought to contain explosive social struggles and were never truly universal, excluding women and African-Americans, for example. After mass struggle ebbed, Roosevelt shifted back to his original goal of stabilizing US capitalism while moving toward establishing US global domination during World War II. Progressive reforms came to an abrupt halt in the late 1930s, allowing the rollback of many popular gains during the 1940s.
FDR was a leftist because of the policies he implemented.
Its hard to argue a politician is something other than his policies.
you are missing is why he implemented those policies
The why hardly matters. Only the consequences. You can definitely argue that FDR failed to cement the more progressive programs (fully employment through public agencies, public control of finance and agriculture, a long term peaceful coexistence with the Soviet states). And for that reason, he was a kind-of failure. But I would argue putting the weight of the world on one man's shoulders is deeply unfair. FDR took US policy as far as he could. Then it was Truman and Eisenhower and their lackeys who fumbled the bag (or capitulated to corporate interests deliberately).
His strategy to contain the CP was to neuter the party by bringing it into the Democratic party fold, alienating their most militant members, and slowly squashing their agenda.
The Democratic Party, as a whole, has a vested interest in neutralizing rival movements and harvesting their members. That's not a strategy FDR invented or pioneered. Neither was the DemSoc liberalism of FDR incompatible with a more Reform Oriented American Communist Movement. The strategy worked in large part because American Communists saw FDR's outreach to Stalin's Russia and Mao's China as a positive turn foreshadowing a real global movement.
I might argue that Stalin's "Communism in One Country" and Mao's failure to open China up until Nixon, thirty years later, that did more damage than FDR's liberal-washing of Communist organizing efforts. I could easily argue that the Truman/Eisenhower Cold War was what ultimately did in the American Communists. Socialists couldn't uproot Hoover from the FBI or unseat McCarthy from a strong union state like Wisconsin or keep guys like Nixon or Kennedy from worming their way into the upper echelons of the US government on a wave of mafia money.
At some point, you have to acknowledge the failures within the leftist organizing movements that happened in the US. Deng and Khrushchev and Ho Chi Mein and Kim Il Sung didn't collapse in the face of these problems in their home states and they all had it much worse.
Oh you mean pro-Incarceration, pro-imperialism, pro-colonialism pro-genocide? Honestly I think you need to pick up a book if you think supporting any of that isn't ignorant shit. Shit, there's whole songs about how you're wrong.
I hate liberals because they think they can stay in their heated box and ignore their community while people freeze and starve to death because they can't contribute to some oligarch's capital and only leave to work for said oligarch so they can afford their funco pops and magic cards.
I hate liberals because they don't intersectionalize and they're quicker to bend a knee to their boss then to join in a strike.
Profitez des vidรฉos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
This framing isn't particularly helpful for solidarity.
The left relies on coalitions. Criticizing the stewards of those coalitions because they fail to address the needs of the people they rely on for votes is helpful and constructive. Just reducing all left-wing voters to a pair of stereotypes and trying to push one of those stereotypes away from the other? Not helpful.
We need nuanced dialogue and mutual aid. It's a matter of survival. This isn't that.
They are imperial murderers and managers of corporate oligarchy. The solidarity we form is against them. They are not left-wing at all, they are hard right wing reactionaries in a nation where the overton window has been shifted and the population is so brainwashed that they can even entertain that they are left-wing. They are barely left of most right wing politicians in the world. As a prosecutor, Kamala Harris has condemned thousands of innocent people to hard labor in slave camps and is an agent of the carceral state. Anyone in the US government is the enemy of free people in the US and around the world.
Your last phrase uses the words of the people on the left not the right, but clearly you don't understand the problem. You are just an apologist for genocide, slavery and empire.
Being willing to accept an end to the war in any other way than Zelenskyโs impossibly maximalist goals means wanting Ukrainians to be genocided. Also history began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Right, because being willing to accept an end to the war in any other way than Zelenskyโs impossibly maximalist goals means wanting Ukrainians to be genocided. Also history began on Feb. 24, 2022.
Hey, I'm actually interested in your personal opinion. Are you pro Russian and if so why? Is there a long game being played out that fits your views with Russian expansion? Or rather the west's decline.
I donโt think Russia currently has an interest in expansion. I already linked above to the reasons for Russiaโs invasion, and they werenโt revanchism or Lebensraum, as Western governments & media claim.
Itโs also often said that Russia is imperialist. I think that if Russia could be imperialist it would be, but since it presently canโt, it presently isnโt. Putin tried to join NATO once, to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected Russia, because the US wanted (and still wants) Russia Balkanized and re-plundered instead. Russia has figured out that itโs better off allying with Global South countries than attempting imperialist adventures upon them. And this war has accelerated that allyship.
Thanks. The nuance is appreciated. If Russia "reclaims" Ukraine through total victory do you think they would allow the Ukraine identity to subsist? Are there more countries Russia would like to revanche? I think Moldova would be an easy grab.
I think Russia knows full well that it canโt โreclaimโ western Ukraine: few people there want to be part of Russia, and the Banderite fascists especially donโt. It would be a absolute nightmare to hold. There would be endless insurgencies and bloodshed, and it would be a huge drain on state resources. Russia wants what is says it has wanted since the 1990s: a neutral buffer state.
Keep in mind that when the invasion started, Eastern Ukraine had been in a civil war with Western Ukraine for almost a decade, and some in Eastern Ukraine had for years pleaded Russia to intervene. Eastern Ukraine is a very different situation from Western Ukraine. Russia had almost no issues when it โinvadedโ Crimea in 2014, because most of the people were glad to no longer be ruled by the Banderite coup government. They were right, too, because they didnโt suffer nine years of fascist paramilitary terrorism like their northern neighbors in Eastern Ukraine did.
Are there more countries Russia would like to revanche? I think Moldova would be an easy grab.
As I said, revanchism isnโt what this was ever about, despite what Western states publicly claim and Western media repeat. Russia would piss off its allies and its enemies if it invaded another country, and its enemies would probably ramp up their war machines against it significantly.
The stated goal of the US State Department is to drag out the conflict for as long as possible. Years ago, Boris Johnson threatened to cut Ukraine out of financial markets if Zelenskyy held peace talks with Russia.
There's a group that wants as much suffering as possible out of this war. But it's not the people who recognize that being the proxy in a struggle between the US and Russia is only going to hurt the people of Ukraine.
There's definitely some BS the west is imposing on Ukraine to drag this conflict out. It feels like it's to financially ruin Russia. I just don't understand why Russia doesn't cut it's losses and just take what they already have. Ukraine is never going to be a part of NATO so I don't understand the NATO expansion argument either.
Why would they? That's like saying the Capitalists in the US could willingly implement Socialism. This isn't an actual solution, as long as it is in Russia's interests to continue, they will. Russia gains nothing by packing up and going home, and they have the means and will to continue.
It's hardly in Russia's interest for their sons to die, their equipment to explode, and their economy to crumble. It's self destructive, which it has in common with capitalism, but worse than that it's a genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Russia's economy isn't crumbling, and its industrial capacity is fairly high. What Russia wants, ultimately, is either an assurance of Ukranian neutrality with respect to NATO or full demillitarization of it. Russia went to war to combat NATO encirclement of its borders. If a peace deal isn't met, Russia can just continue to slowly advance while the US carves out Ukraine for profit.
This is why I usually try not to label myself these days. Invariably there is nuance that I'm not aware of, or that some others interpret differently.
I'm NOT a democrat, republican, conservative, communist, socialist, liberal, maga, or anarchist.
But I lean left on social issues, often hard left, though I say that while also saying I'm firmly anti-authoritarian. And I don't really put fiscal on a separate axis because there are fiscal impacts to any set of beliefs with regard to how various social issues should be considered. I'm also not at all conversant in the slightest bit of nuance regarding how the economy works.
I'm sure some folks would call me a leftist based on the above. Others would insist I'm a liberal. Am I a progressive? Not sure.
That's why I'd rather call myself center left. By US standards I'm still probably "far left", because I'm for public healthcare, strong regulations and very robust social safety net. But unlike probably most people here on lemmy, if someone runs a business that's not completely out of control and has unionized employees, I don't think there's a problem with that.
That's a very weird customer service (as someone who works professional with Oracle I KNOW that they have the legal required backups of customer data - and that they are legally required to inform about a termination... at least in the EU)
@tenkoman I'm calling with my legal insurance on Monday for this reason especially. Oracle can't really think they can just do this to an EU citizen and there'll be zero consequences? Man...
@ilookloud I paid them money. I still do. I also won't make any efforts to stop them from taking my money (additionally, I currently can't even do that, since I can't login to my account as it was deleted, although I'm seeing a charge for the next month).
So... I don't know what this is supposed to mean. It seems as if my account was deleted, but my server wasn't. I'm still paying for the server, but I will never be allowed to create an account to access that server.
@aeva @ilookloud I won't. Maybe I then have a point about paying for a service they didn't provide. Because I cannot end my payment to them as the account I could do it through is terminated.
After realizing that my servers were offline since the 25th of January 2025, I've been in contact with Oracle support in a multitude of ways trying to figure out why this happened and how we can recover both the account and data.
I wasn't told that my account was disabled. I didn't receive an E-Mail or anything. When logging in, I was simply told that my username or password was incorrect. After (successfully) resetting my password twice, I realized it wasn't about the password. Oracle had just deleted my account without any notice.
Both through calls and text, always with the same service request (SR) number, I contacted support. Initially, support told me that my account was flagged โInactiveโ and hence disabled. They also verified that they saw me login almost daily and that I never missed a payment or anything. Even if an account was inactive, that's never a reason to disable it, especially without any warning E-Mail or an E-Mail letting me know that my account was disabled in the first place.
This chat was the result of all of that, where the highest team I've yet been elevated to told me that there's nothing they can do about it, there's no reason they can tell me for why this happened, and there's no one else I could ask.
I also love how I ask โIs there anything I can do to avoid this happening in the future?โ and they respond with โOh, don't worry. You don't have a future at Oracle. This will not happen to you again, as we don't allow for you to make another account.โ
What the hell? Not even an explanation? I mean, I've worked with Oracle for a couple of clients before and know that they are utterly incompetent as a company but this is the worst treatment I've ever heard of. I'm so sorry!
@4censord Will do. The reason parts of the chat are cut out (you can see a ~10 minute gap if you look at the time) was me trying to convince him that as an EU citizen they can't do that to me or at least have to give me insight into my own data, which includes the cloud servers I currently still pay for.
@4censord I was just charged for the month of January and the value looks similar to other months, hence it's not like the last week (since the 25th, ever since I couldn't access / it was "deletedโ) was not charged.
Interestingly, two days before Oracle deleted my account and all servers associated with it, I publicly criticized Oracle's CEO in a viral post for promising dystopian AI surveillance technology to his investors.
Day three of Trump's term and the largest push for surveillance capitalism yet has been made: Project Stargate will be a $500.000.000.000 (500 billion USD) data center used for running a multitude of AIs with the purpose of spying on you.
Larry Ellison, the world's second richest man and CEO of Oracle, one of the main partners of Stargate, said:
โCitizens will be on their best behavior, because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on [...]. We're using A.I. to monitor the video.โ
โ Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle on how the company's A.I. systems will be used for in the future [Source: Business Insider]
This is who is in power now. This is the vision they have.
Also, isn't GDPR applicable here? (I had also a account deleted with the reason of โwe can't tell youโ (and it happened while I was asking for help with the registration) and the help desk ignored my questions for data. But I had other problems and did not get very far.)
"Interestingly, two days before Oracle deleted my account and all servers associated with it, I publicly criticized Oracle's CEO in a viral post for promising dystopian AI surveillance technology to his investors."
@chbmeyer a post I recently made was reposted and only through a friend of mine seeing it I realized it had 3.8 million views on Reddit. To this day I'm being sent Instagram posts by other accounts reposting that daily through friends or because these accounts tag me.
It's easy (and even appreciated by me) when my posts leave this platform. I don't think I've angered anyone, I'm way too irrelevant. However, when arbitration is the norm, a small act like this can easily be pushed under the rug.
I guess the problem rather is that it may as well be true. Since we're given no explanation, or rather a refusal to explain what happened here by Oracle, we must come up with what sounds like a conspiracy.
Do I believe there's really a connection here? 99.9% sure there isn't. Is it possible for any AI to scan the internet for criticics and make their life harder? Sure is. Is it most likely Oracle's arbitrary practices? Yeah.
This could've happened to anyone, a critic, fan, or someone who's indifferent to Oracle. That's almost worse than it only happening to someone critical of their CEO.
@chbmeyer I think you're way underestimating the possibility that someone there saw the post (probably on Reddit etc), saw your relatively unusual name, found the account and banned it
@chbmeyer maybe it's completely unrelated to your free speech criticism of the CEO but rather a technical issue at their end. For instance, your account is corrupted and embarrassingly they have no way to restore it or fix it. Or maybe you were accidentally deleted when in fact it should have been someone else... but they can't restore. So, u get... as we say in the UK... Thrown under the bus! Just a theory mind, I can't imagine criticising a CEO of a mega corp is gonna get you booted.
@ivor just to be clear, what I'm saying is a baseless accusation. I'm 99.99% sure that they didn't deliberately do this to mess with me. Although it'd be funny if they did. Even worse: maybe Oracle treats everyone like this, criticics and supporters alike.
@ivor Might be a coincident, what I - to be honest - don't believe! But be it as it is, either it's real coincident and EU GDPR will show them how to act or Larry is begging to get a place on the list for those to get luigi'd. So keep my fingers crossed it's coincidence! ๐
@ivor @jhamby invoke the GDPR / Data protection rights and ask for all data they have on you. They must reply by law. Otherwise sue them for damages. Thats the language american corporations at least somewhat understand.
@musevg my real name here and โerik.uden1@gmail.comโ on their platform? To be fair, I also think it's a stretch. It's most likely arbitrary actions by Oracle which make zero sense.
It's nice to know your voice is heard. I get these disturbing reminders, and sometimes visibly IRL, which is the reason why Vernon Jarrett used to secretly carry a pistol. Now think about Hunter Thompson as someone who was not a clown, but knew what was happening around him.
@Arsimael I have a legal protection insurance and will talk to the people there. More importantly we also have Cyber insurance for various things, if anything is lost that'd also be covered by them.
I'll look into it, for now I'll just make sure that I'm understanding the situation correctly because at the moment I feel like I'm missing something or I did something terribly wrong. Like, I ignored some E-Mails warning me about the termination or something, but there's just nothing. I'll figure this out and see where it goes...
You violated obviously the big tech bros mantra: FREE SPEECH โ as this means clearly: Free speech for all the fascist leaders and their clans โ but not for the people.
was there any contract in place associated with your payment?
A lawsuit in the US at least has discovery. You could subpoena emails, logs, any records associated with you or your account. You may not win the suit, but youโll get answersโฆ that you can then make public because Oracle is a shit company and everyone needs to see all their dirty laundry.
Makes me think of a post I read a while back, about how Oracle is like a chainsaw or lawnmower. It doesn't take your foot off because it bears you malice, it's just a thing that can happen. Larry Ellison is the same, you can't anthropomorphise him.
Yeah, Uncle Larry's like that - vindictive and petty.
One note, his title at Oracle changed in 2014. He's actually the Chief Technical Officer and Executive Chairman (whatever the hell that means.) Safra Catz is Oracle's CEO.
Moving these servers, despite having no long term impact like data loss, will have some financial impact. Don't feel forced to, your vocal support about this issue was more than enough to turn my evening from a bad to a wonderful one, however if you have the financial resources I'd be happy about a little support:
It's the beginning of the month again and that means new bills for the servers (which we now have to partially move due to Oracle)! We have various expenses and moderation work unfortunately takes up a lot of time, which is why we would be very happy about a little support!
in the sense of the GDPR, this is a data violation (a company cannot delete your data without notifying you). You should get in touch with your data protection authority (BfDI if you live in Germany) about this.
@deuchnord The notification under Article 19 doesnโt apply to this case. I dont think there is an article of GDPR that says that you have to notify individuals that their data is being deleted. That would add complexity to data disposal processes once its retention period is over. Not defending Oracle here but I bet their t&cs say they will delete user data once the contract is terminated for whatever reason.
This morning, on February 2nd 2025 at 06:58 (GMT+1) I've received an E-Mail by Oracle stating โYour Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.โ
I couldn't believe my eyes and didn't really understand how to respond. At the point in time where I received this E-mail, my post regarding Oracle's mistreatment has already gathered thousands of shares and was also discussed heavily on Hacker News among other platforms.
My many pleas and requests from the past week didn't do anything. My GDPR request didn't do anything so far. But within a few hours of public complaints and so many people telling me to take this to court... I guess this was simply the easiest way.
I still don't fully understand the E-Mail I've gotten. It talks about an order about universal credits that occurred at 5:20 AM, where I've been cold asleep. When I login to Oracle Cloud, no such credits exist. Additionally, they don't show up when I look into the โCost and Usage Reportsโ under my account management. Even more interesting are the dozens of files showing an account and server activity, with the calculated cost of it all, for a time period where my account was supposedly irreversibly deleted.
I'll share more interesting findings soon. I am honestly just shocked about this development. I would've expected many things except for a 180.
@eljojo I don't dare to talk to anyone. I'm currently hastily downloading everything there is just to be sure I got it. Afterwards I'll play around with it some more.
I wish my main and inspiring takeaway here would be that we can fight them and win.
However, I was in no control here. The fact this resonated with a lot of people causing an internet wide uproar was nice, but Oracle's legal team could've decided to not care.
Are they taking the wind out of our sails by reinstating my account? Is this their way of admitting and undoing an honest mistake? Would this have happened if I never complained publicly about it, or was my private GDPR request what did the magic here?
I cannot tell you. All I can say is that your account and all your data still exists on Oracle's servers even over a week after your account has been โirreversiblyโ wiped. Keep that in mind the next time support tells you there's nothing they can do.
โWe cannot provide more details or reactivate your account.โ
โThere is no way to recover your account.โ
โThere is no team to which to escalate this.โ
12 hours and 39 minutes after a public meltdown regarding their arbitrary deletion and their indifferent, uncooperative sentiment towards that
โYour Oracle Cloud account has been reactivated.โ
I also dislike the passiveness in that statement. You reactivated it. Doesn't matter if it was an automated system or a human, you did that. It wasn't magically reactivated by some third party, it was you.
What I'm about to say is obviously just speculation, but if it was some terms of service I was violating, or their system goofing up and believing I was a free tier account and hence them stopping everything as they needed to make space for a paid service, wouldn't my server shut down first and my account be deleted second?
If there was some problematic material found to be stored on my server, or if I was illegally running a mail-server, TOR exit node, crypto miner, illegal streaming site, or something else that was violating the TOS, wouldn't the server be the first thing they irreversibly nuke?
The server was apparently constantly running, even when my account was terminated. Its IP address and any public access (ingress, egress rules) were removed or blocked.
The current uptime is 17 days. This makes everything all the more confusing...
I suffered exactly the same thing with Hetzner. They simply deleted Ursal.zone account. Thankfully we had backups. But they never said why, never sent a warning mail and never gave my data back.
They just try, thinking, there will be no reaction. If the reaction is dangerous for them (reputation), they step back. But obviously, no one would reasonably go back to them โ as next time you say something negative about the boss, that can/will happen again.
If it was shut out due to some security trigger, everything you've described would match. - the server would not be shut down but isolated for investigation - your account would be shut off as compromised, since you don't have a named account manager (= you're not big enough to care about) - customer support would not be able to tell you anything @ErikUden
You want to know what I think it might be? People were probably communicating around you with some details that someone wanted gone. You weren't considered valuable enough as a customer to keep over them, and they follow money. Companies often "feel" they owe nothing, but just not to upset their main customer base. But they'd never admit it.
I don't know what the server's for, but I'd ask what the last person who used it posted or what it mainly contains as to a clue. But I won't ask that. It's rude, even if curious, and a security risk. Just some thoughts.
I had a similar case with a international company that does taxi replacment. My account was deactivated after I could call my 1st ride (ever), asked why at the support, seems I violated terms of services. After a year, could ask a friend that worked there to see if he could get some ' inside ' info on why I was deactivated. My accout was re-activated and he had not any information from the team who managed that. Seems my account could have been destroyed in between.
That looks like a slight misintepretation of your findings. Your ownership has been compromised, and I would assume "your" data is now theirs, they just temporarily allow access to it
@nojoy some day I'll get my 0.0005% of shares for the Stargate Project. Just an E-mail sent from a burner account โThanks, Erikโ signed by Larry Ellison.
You should ask for a refund for the time you were not able to use the account/servers/data ๐ See how they react. I mean, it wasn't your fault and they actively denied you access to your data. But obviously they kept billing you for it.
My prediction is that your account got hacked or compromised somehow, and some bad actors used it to run counter-ToS activity.
*Customer service* is just people reading scripts handling only common flows. The script says the account is "irreversibly" closed. The script is written that way, because actual bad actors will try to weedle their way back into being allowed.
Automatic server shut-down on account deactivation might be a "do later" task on some backlog task list.
i think someone at oracles legal team read their own dpa (sec. 9.1) and/or looked into the consequences of extraordanarily terminating a contract without reason in germany/ireland. ๐ค
@ulfr Ellison also just happens to be a genocidal Zionist who, in 2017, gave $16.6 million to the Friends of the IDF (FIDF) โfor the construction of well-being facilities for co-ed infantry battalions in the IDFโ.
His company, Oracle, also now controls much of Britainโs most sensitive military and public data!
Repeat after me: "...or you will leave me no choice but to pursue all available legal remedies." cc a legal team email or fax it to their legal department.
They do this stuff because nobody thinks "I just got fucked by someone providing a service to me, that's a breach of contract/law, I should sue them for not providing what I paid for an interfering with my ability to do business."
Diese Reaktion von #Oracle beweist die Relevanz der Reichweite von @ErikUden und verdeutlicht die Bedeutung des #Fediverse bzw. von #mastodon fรผr die kapitalistisch ausgerichteten #SocialMediaDienste. Jene Dienste die hinter dem Geschรคftsvorwand #Marketing , sich der #Ueberwachung hingeben . ๐
another reminder how little control of the data you have in VPS . #onsite #hosting may be viable alternative for smaller projects. What to do with larger ones?
@Emily Sei vorsichtig mit solchen Versprechen! Oder weisst du schon die DB Grรถsse und die benรถtigten SLA? ๐ค Ansonsten hรคtt ich da auch einen Kunden, sind nur 3.5 TB, HA Umgebung und 10/5 und fรผr den Rest nur Bereitschaft. Aber fรผr 5 โฌ/Mon. werden die sicher weich! ๐ ๐ ๐คช
@purpleidea this just happened to me today. I have no idea how to respond yet. Step one was venting publicly. Step two will be talking to our insurance. Step three is... idk.
I am intrigued that Oracle doesn't seem to have any backups - at least bold claim for a cloud company saying we can oops your data and we don't have any system integrity
@tqft THEY HAVE!! THEY HAVE BACKUPS!! They legally need to. Especially on paid accounts. They cannot legally just delete your stuff, no warning, no notification. The only proof that my account is deleted is this chat. Officially they're just telling me that I am entering an incorrect password. Only through support calls and service chats I'm getting a different message.
It seems to be increasingly normal. I've had the same happen on Etsy (account stopped working, no notice, eventually found out it was closed for reasons that are apparently none of my business) and two PayPal accounts over the years (keeping my money in both cases, luckily not much).
Feudal lords do not need to explain their rulings to the peasants.
I wonder if buying a couple of shares of Oracle stock and then contacting their shareholdersโ public relations team as a concerned shareholder for explanations might bring some clarity? (Idea stolen from Patrick McKenzie of bitsaboutmoney.com)
They were alot more honest than Liquid Web. I am lucky I did not really need the service I tried to get from Liquid Web "on sale" lol, though I know they have lots of good bandwidth, not awfully far from Chicago. They got bought by investment bankers and have an agenda they impose on new customers. (1 of 2) my apologies, but I have an attitude about Oracle and it's founder
@TimWardCam @CStamp well, I hope it's neither. The servers really just ran Nextcloud and some minor services. Terrorism? Money laundry? Oracle, you got the wrong guy! ๐
(but hey, if you got his number, feel free to give it to me, he seems to be living the more interesting life)
@tomasekeli Don't worry. I was warned of Oracle when I first joined the Fediverse. I laughed and didn't listen. I may still be a victim, but I was in every power to not be one.
parallels with google cloud just flat deleting the unisuper's accounts. Except you're not a giant organisation that gets an apology (but not their data) from the high ups. itnews.com.au/news/unisuper-prโฆ
Fuck Oracle. Absolutely fuck these fuckers. They wroke havoc in OpenOffice too, killed MySql, keep their stupid copyright on JavaScript, enshittified Java, and I fear for VirtualBox.
Day three of Trump's term and the largest push for surveillance capitalism yet has been made: Project Stargate will be a $500.000.000.000 (500 billion USD) data center used for running a multitude of AIs with the purpose of spying on you.
Larry Ellison, the world's second richest man and CEO of Oracle, one of the main partners of Stargate, said:
โCitizens will be on their best behavior, because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on [...]. We're using A.I. to monitor the video.โ
โ Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle on how the company's A.I. systems will be used for in the future [Source: Business Insider]
This is who is in power now. This is the vision they have.
Google did that to me about 3 years ago to an account more than a decade old. So many things were lost that day that can never be recovered.
The only reason they gave was claiming that I broke their ToS, which seems unlikely given that I'm the kind of person who actually reads the fine print.
oracle is hilariously bad, I couldn't even sign on because their API calls were broken for two weeks straight and they wouldn't even give me a real person to talk to
one of many reasons to quietly remain invisible to Larry Ellison and his shitwagon. He and Elon Musk will be turning Memphis into their personal boom town, each with their own take on your personal data. #healthcare #privacy #data
@fox84 It used to be a free tier account up until August of last year! I heard warnings about this happening to Free Tier accounts if they're inactive for too long which is why there were still some scripts running to simulate the CPU being utilized. I am currently thinking that may be the reason for the termination: overuse? However, it was a pay as you go account, and the script was pretty smart. It currently just doesn't make any sense in my head.
@bananarama Thanks, I didn't see that comment. I also had a terrible experience with them, and later spent a year contacting their support to close my account and delete the data (that was challenging). So, no more Oracle for me, I don't want to do business with them at all.
@fox84 @bananarama they deleted my account and data unwarranted, for you it took over a year to get everything deleted. What even is this business? ๐
@bananarama First, I had a problem with my account - I don't remember their terminology anymore, but they made a new account management system (like IAM) that locked me out of my admin account since it was forced to be used for authentication and I, apparently, didn't even had a separate account configured there. It took a few months to restore my account, after which the decision was made to migrate. After the migration, I deleted the account and asked for the data to be deleted. I received two confirmations that both actions were successfully completed. A few moments later I got some system email and found out that I can still log in, there is still the data, but I can't interact with anything. It took a year of communication to get to a meeting with the backend engineer where I helped them debug the account and got confirmation that there was a bug in their backend that made it look like the account was deleted, but actually - it was still there.
@gabboman are you running on OCI โpay as you goโ? That's what I'm currently on. Again, I can't be the only person to ever have this happen to, but it also can't be many people. I guess put it on your to do, but it probably shouldn't be a major priority.
I had this happen but interestingly it was after I started paying them money for VM that I was previously running on their free tier.
I was stupidly building an app with someone else on a live server without any backups, but when it came time to make it live I needed to increase the resources and when I did it just *poof* disappears.
Oracle supports was absolutely clueless and useless.
@vmstan that's almost precisely what happened to me. Last year in August I upgraded from a Free Tier to a paid tier and now it's just gone. I didn't increase anything, but the server also ran a Nextcloud and the user of it may have started using it heavily a few days prior (at least he told me so).
people say the hosting market is oversaturated, but the hosting market that *doesn't* do shady or bad shit like this most definitely has room for improvement
My experience with Oracle left me with a clear playbook: that I will check regularly if they bought a service I use and terminate that one immediately if true.
I will never do any business with Oracle on my own free will, even if itโs for free.
ho ho man, I would love to be the guy that got to "lament to inform" Larry Ellison that his fancy yacht sank... And that his data centers were on fire...
This royally sucks, but I'm glad you have backups.
Your experience demonstrates we cannot fully trust any public cloud. Few organizations (let alone individuals) have the legal might to take companies like Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft to court over this sort of thing.
Oracle Cloud deleting active user accounts without possibility for data recovery
Link: https://mastodon.de/@ErikUden/113930010311998246
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901897
#oracle
In case anyone is wondering, Apple does the same. A close neighbour has a dozen Apple products which are suddenly bricked, and cannot recover any of his photos, contacts, chats, or other iCloud data. Apple refuses to tell him why it happened, or to give him any help in fixing it.
That is cold. You said you had years of work on there. I've never seen a company say they don't know why an account was deleted. I'm not even sure what to think about that. That's crazy.
Unfortunately Oracle behaves like that. We had a free tier Cloud VPS to do some experiment and suddenly it disappeared. Then we moved to Hetzner, which offers a top notch quality.
They must be good at sales because my large muni employer uses *all* their stuff. PeopleSoft. Maximo. Primavera. Unifier. It's all Oracle. All the time.
RedBubble has the same problem. They ban people with absolutely no warning or explanation and there's no real way to appeal the ban. Always do research on any platform you're about to do business with, to make sure they're not a platform that will pull stunts like this.
that sucks, and makes zero sense. i work at red hat and just trying to imagine how we could even accidentally do that. if you're interested, lmk and can try and get you in contact with the right people at RH. glad to read you had backups.
@dch @lproven I would love to talk about this to some news organization. I mean, it just happened to me. I never put much thought into what to do about this...
already have a bad experience with them several years ago, when I was still studying that one salesperson keep asking me why I stop using their cloud services, and it lasted for a freaking year
Oracle ... American company. Great, it was on my list of places to avoid anyway. Anyway, in case anyone is wondering, ... a good substitute might be postgresql.
o my fucking God, AWS did that to me too. AWS denyed me and @alexchapman to aws cloud emailing service because "I'd be DDOSing and messing with AWS's service". and they didn't give me what we did, as far as I knew we were just building servers and messing with Amazon Polly, EC2, and s3. like what the fuck man
An Oracle colleague told me that the company's name stood for "Owned by a Rich Arsehole Called Larry Ellison".
I joked when I joined that I had just signed up with "Globex Corporation". None of the team laughed.
The signs have always been there. What tipped me over the edge was both the helplessness of Oracle "help" and Oracle's self-interest support for Trump's first bid for presidency.
Well, I'm not alone. This happened to me a few years back (I wanna say 2018 or 2019?) My OCI account and the servers I had there were terminated without warning or even a message from Oracle. I found out when I noticed the machines were offline and couldn't log in. I never even got a reply from Oracle support after repeated contact attempts so apparently they've improved since then!
I saw Larry Ellison in the mid to late 90s at a Linux event in San Jose. Big booth and he arrived unannounced, hopped up ona chair or table to tell us how Oracle loved freedom and Linux.
He was the best way they could have said "Don't use Oracle" and nobody walked away from that as believers in Oracle or its leadership.
Every time I've been tempted since, I've been hurt.
Seems like everyone who's deployed anything to #Oracle OCI has a similar story to tell. My account (in the "always free" tier) disappeared and was restored after several days and a phone call to vet my identity, before which I already had restored my data elsewhere. Only recently I've deployed something onto them again (it's "always free" after all), but stateless so I can deploy to D'Ocean or OVH within minutes. I fully expect it to go down once it gains noticeable traction.
"Your account was suspended. Contact My Oracle Support for assistance." Soviel zum Always-Free-Tier der #Oracle Cloud. Ich hatte gestern ein OpenVPN fรผr meinen persรถnlichen Gebrauch aufgesetzt. //cc @frumble@chaos.social
@unixtippse Sehr wichtig ist auch, den Account auf Pay as you go zu stellen (immer noch gratis, solange man nichts รผberzieht). Hattest Du das gemacht, Erik?
Attached: 1 image
This must be the least effort I've ever witnessed in a customer service incident. Not even sure how to top this.
Even stalebot (if you know, you know) seems more engaged. ๐
I think you could report Oracle for ยง 303a StGB (data manipulation), in the alternative ยง 145d (pretense of criminal offense). I think the latter could be relevant if no data manipulation occured.
@realn2s @funbaker Yes, Larry Ellison famously scoffed at cloud computing until it became a success, then they rushed to set up their own offering... EDIT: Not sure why I mixed up Larry Wall initially, thanks for the correction.
La decisione di Lituania ed Estonia di aumentare la spesa per la difesa al 5% del PIL segna un momento storico e al tempo stesso preoccupante nella politica europea.
La presentazione delle valutazioni preliminari del cingolato Lynx da parte dellโEsercito Italiano presso il Poligono militare di Nettuno segna un momento cruciale nel programma di ammodernamento delle forze corazzate nazionali. Il
Facebook mi ha proposto questo ricordo (del 2011), ma visto che di lร me ne sto andando, e visto che questa scena mi emoziona sempre, lo ricreo qui...
They say that love is a fragile thing, a limits wing, a magic ring made of gold. They say that love is a bird in flight, a gleam of light, a star too bright to behold.
Tell me, tell me, tell me oh child of the moon. Is it as they say, must love slip away too soon. Tell me, Rima, where are the meadows of June. Speaking with her eyes, softly she replies:
I know a place, where green mansions are as near or far, as any star up above. And in this land of eternal spring where hummingbirds can learn to sing. Green groves, the mansions of love.
Lo stipendio mensile lordo annuo di un insegnante รจ di 30 mila euro/anno. Ben al di sotto del costo di un'ora di volo di un F-35 che sfiora i 42 mila dollari.
Col coordinamento di Umberta Telfener, che ne ha curato la stesura, i Didatti della scuola di specializzazione in terapia sistemica del CMTF hanno prodotto un saggio che rappresenta lo stato attuale di quello che chiamiamo โMilan Approachโ, lโapproccio milanese, cioรจ la modalitร di lavoro nella terapia sistemica che emerge dalla pratica clinica e dalla ricerca dei Maestri e degli attuali terapeuti del Centro e della scuola. massimogiuliani.it/blog/2025/0โฆ
Col coordinamento di Umberta Telfener, che ne ha curato la stesura, i Didatti della scuola di specializzazione in terapia sistemica del CMTF hanno prodotto un saggio che rappresenta lo stato attualโฆ
Oggi abbiamo passato un bellissimo e divertentissimo pomeriggio con una gara goliardica di tiro con l'arco fra i dipendenti e gli amministratori del comune di Piovene Rocchette.
Un doveroso ringraziamento al Sindaco Renato Grotto per averci creduto e per la fattiva collaborazione.
Un altro grande ringraziamento va alla ASD Arcieri del Pasubio per la qualificata assistenza tecnica.
Provo a piantare le tende anche su Poliverso.org dopo una lunga esplorazione del Fediverso (il 2025 per me sarร l'anno del trasloco dai social di massa). Non molto intuitivo ma nemmeno incomprensibile. Penso che potrei trovarmi bene. Ho un po' di difficoltร a trovare contatti che condividano i miei principali interessi (la musica, la psicoterapia e quello che c'รจ in mezzo), ma immagino sia solo questione di darsi un po' di tempo e cercare meglio.
Qualche anno fa avevo deciso di prendere una seconda laurea in Psicologia, ho dato 2-3 esami ma poi ho dovuto rinunciare perchรฉ non riuscivo a far stare insieme universitร , figlio, lavoro e tutto il resto.
Poi...
In casa mia ci sono:
una chitarra elettrica
una chitarra classica
un synt
una drum pad
un basso
un PC Linux con Ubuntu Studio (il mio studio di registrazione privato ๐)
I gruppi funzionano come i vecchi gruppi di discussione: tu indirizzi il primo messaggio a loro e loro lo ripubblicano in favore di tutti quelli che lo seguono.
ร il sistema per simulare i gruppi Facebook o i subreddit all'interno del fediverso
@Massimo Max Giuliani ciao Massimo, anche io sono nuova qui e come tutti sto cercando di capire come funziona e come trovare persone affini, ce la faremo โบ๏ธ anche per il 2025 sarร l'anno dell'abbandono dei social di massa ๐ musica: non suono nessuno strumento ma ne ascolto molta โบ๏ธ
Ciao @aimee80 , vedo che ci stai lavorando! Ho fatto tesoro del tuo scambio con l'admin, ho imparato un po' di cose ๐ Grazie, ti aggiungo al censimento dei contatti che ascoltano musica! ๐
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The E-Mail text reads โORACLE Cloud...
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Your Oracle Cloud account (erik[redacted]) has been reactivated, and you can now use your account to access your cloud resources and services.
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Emanuele
in reply to Il Simone Viaggiatore โข โข โขche invidia, oggi qui nel torinese si taglia la nebbia con il coltello ๐
Prendi un po' di sole anche per me ๐
๐ช๐บ Il Simone Viaggiatore โ๏ธ๐งณ
in reply to Emanuele โข โข โขpromesso!
Spiace dirlo, ma รจ un altro vivere, almeno per me.
Il Simone Viaggiatore
in reply to Emanuele โข โข โขEmanuele
in reply to Il Simone Viaggiatore โข โข โขIo ti auguro solo il meglio ๐๐๐โ๏ธโฑ๏ธ
ร solo il clima atlantico tipico, va e viene ๐ค
Il Simone Viaggiatore
in reply to Emanuele โข โข โข@italele@mastodon.uno grazie, lo so ๐
Oggi purtroppo รจ venuto e basta +il clima atlantico). Spero un po' meglio per domani perchรฉ vorrei vedere le spiagge di questa zona! โฑ๏ธ